#the way forces is set up with the speed/boost type levels with sonic and then the hybrid modes with the avatar and then regular ole classic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

supportivecircle · 1 year

Text

Sonic Wisps Warlock Patron Homebrew Part 2: Wisp Powers

As promised to the void of this website, Part 2 of the Wisps Patron from my year long Sonic DnD campaign is here. Sequel to Part 1, which covers the Subclass Level Features, this post goes through all the wisps and what powers they provide to the player at Level 6 (or earlier if they take an invocation). The idea of these is to provide a wide variety of options to augment the user’s capabilities and synergize with different playstyles or needs throughout the adventuring day. In the prior post, it’s explained that at Level 6 the Warlock gets the ability to activate a number of wisps per day equal to their Charisma Modifier+Proficiency bonus. Each wisp by default can only be activated once per day individually, so without an invocation they aren’t meant to be focused on as reliable uses in every encounter throughout the day. One of the invocations that comes in the next part adds a limited number of extra uses without exhausting the wisp, mostly to give players a means of accessing these abilities earlier if the campaign is lower level. None of these powers are meant to be long lasting or on-par with spells or full features that might give similar effects, but the player will have access to a variety of options to play with and keep things interesting if they are someone who craves choice and flavor in their abilities.

These were organized and designed in alphabetical order. For full clarity if people don’t remember or haven’t absorbed the original post, the listed Element is the option having that Wisp prepared gives when deciding to swap elements of spells with the 1st level feature. I’ll go through the options and say how they ended up being used in our campaign by the Wisp Warlock. ASTEROID! (which by the way if you DM this, you are legally obligated to shout the wisp names when activated) is meant to be an area denial move to force slowdown, force repositioning, or ground flying creatures. It’s area size grows with your Charisma, as well as how many rounds it lasts. It’s slowdown effect is meant to be on par with Plant Growth but with a smaller area, a grounding effect, and a much shorter duration. The Warlock in our game used this a few times in the campaign, to varying effectiveness. It was useful for grounding a few tougher flying enemies, or for forcing the enemy to use their action to dash to get within range of attacking next turn if they don’t have a ranged option. Standard AoE crowd control stuff. BOMB! was one that took me a while to think about and worry about, but in practice it wasn’t anything immensely strong. We found that it was good for catching an additional enemy or two in a blast, or more powerfully imo, cast a spell in an area and be able to reach another enemy without hitting an ally nearby. For instance, casting Shatter (a reliable spell in a Sonic setting) on some badniks near an ally, then stretching spaces around the ally to hit another enemy on their flank. At highest Charisma, outside of any magic items, it adds up to 5 squares to the space an AoE occupies. BOOST! is the first Wisp to have no associated element. There are a few that don’t have any elements that felt appropriate, so you lose out on some versatility options for damage type by having it prepared. The effect is straightfoward: you get faster. It’s no Haste, but it gives you a solid speed boost for a few rounds. Very straightforward. BURST! was used a few times in the campaign when enemies were grouped up. I was worried at first, but it wasn’t too bad. At low levels, the damage can be very nice, and at level 6 when you get more uses of Wisps per day, it still can provide a little bit of extra damage to an attack for one of your more available resources.

CUBE! got used a few times to block off doorways, create an emergency source of cover, or shove some people. It creates a massive cube. It was effectively used in a dire situation at least once to plug up an entrance. It might be worth adjusting it to have scaling HP so it stays viable as cover in the later game. An option to consider: HP = 10 + Warlock Levelx5, which would keep the 15 base HP but increase the maximum to 110. It’ll probably stay up a lot longer later in the game against regular attacks, but AoE’s will still be able to chunk it down. I forgot to write it down in the document, but mechanically it should auto-fail any saving throws. Cause it’s just a cube. DRILL! was used maybe two times in the campaign? Burrowing speed can be very good in certain environments, or useless in others. When it works, it gives you a fantastic means of maneuvering around the environment and avoiding enemy line of sight. When it doesn’t work, you at least still get Tremorsense within 15ft. EAGLE! Flight speed is straightforward. Useful in combat to get an advantageous position, useful out of combat for brief bursts of maneuverability. It won’t last you long enough to fly to the top of a mountain, but with Dash you can clear some distance of verticality. Take that Knuckles, you gliding scrublord. GHOST! was one of the more awkward to write. The effect came in good use for scouting through an otherwise un-openable door and then popping back out. Dunno if everyone counts a door as an object but we said screw it, it was fun. In combat, it can be useful to get out of a very bad melee scenario.

This page was posted early as a teaser because I love the bottom artwork. HOVER! is straight up stated to be Jump and Feather Fall combined, but with a much shorter duration. Useful for getting around or avoiding a nasty fall. Whisper used it during her appearances in our campaign to get to advantageous sniping positions, as well as make good pursuit on enemies who could fly over obstacles. LASER! was a solid and frequently used wisp whenever it was prepared. It didn’t help that Radiant damage was further incentivized by a magical item I made available for purchase in a shop. In any case, the effect for LASER! is straight out of the games and comics. Throw out some gems and watch your spell bounce around to catch them off guard. Powerful if you’ve got any good spells that meet the requirements, but limited by the number of uses per day. Designed so that even if you took Spell Sniper like Whisper, you still get something out of the wisp power. LIGHTNING! was one I was really really happy with the flavor of. I think it’s rad. Our Warlock was a Chainlock and took the special familiar, so they only really had use of this a few times for creative plays like running into the middle of enemies, casting spells centered around the player, and then zapping back to their origin point. The first time they used this, they thought they had Thunderwave and neither of us knew they were wrong. It was an awesome moment. So awesome and fitting for a RHYTHM! wisp-themed spell that I wouldn’t even fault anyone for replacing Color Spray on the Expanded Spell List with Thunderwave if they wanted to. If you’re a Bladelock and are afraid to go in on a turn, LIGHTNING! gives you an option of getting in, causing some mayhem, then warping back out of the fray.

The final page of the Wisp options starts with QUAKE! which is very much one of the ones that will be niche outside of some Bladelocks who want an emergency injection of AC and the capabilities to knock someone prone with your bonus action. I honestly can’t recall if our Warlock ever used this because they were a mid-long range caster with their familiar going into melee combat. I don’t think it’s too wacky in terms of balance. RHYTHM! is a temp HP ability. I think I either meant to put “another” creature or I meant for it to be creatures, but we ran with it as being one other creature. The wisp gives out about as much temp HP to a single target as a level 1 cast of False Life, so if you are fine with letting it be multiple creatures, the Warlock can basically get a False Life cast on each party member once per day if they have it prepared when someone gets hurt. At lower levels, its probably too generous if you rule it that way. If you’re at the levels where everyone already has at least 50HP, the temp HP it gives probably isn’t that bad. It’s also cute. ROCKET! I think got used once in our campaign? It’s a “GET ME OUT OF HERE” button to avoid needing to use your action to disengage to a safer distance. It is specifically worded that you do not get to control when it ends if you don’t want to go the full distance. If you commit, you’re going until you either hit the full distance or bump into an object. For mid-long range casters its probably perfect because they want to get far enough away from the melee that the enemy would have to dash or choose a new target. For people who just want a get out of jail card but still be able to move in, at higher Charisma it’s going to be more difficult unless you can find someone/thing to cut off your path. Theoretically you could use it to jump straight up in the air 50ft. I don’t know why, maybe to peer over an especially tall wall, or there’s a ledge to grab on to above the combat. Who knows! Multi-floor facilities exist. SPIKES! is just the spite wisp. You’re gonna get hit. Screw it. Take them down with you. Incentivize them to hit the other person after the first attack. Stack it with Armor of Agathys. It might be open to interpretation as written, but it is intended to hurt the attacker on the attack that triggered it. I believe it was used once by our mid-long range Warlock in a fight against a giant badnik, but they avoided melee for most of the game so it wasn’t relevant, which was expected. While this was written specifically for one player to use, when we started I wasn’t sure what kind of Pact they would make or what their playstyle would be so I wanted options for the different approaches they might take.

The next part will be a measly THREE pages (compared to these FOUR) of Invocations/Familiar option made for the subclass. One of which is shown above. There’s one for each of the main three pacts: Chain, Tome, Blade. If you’re using a homebrew pact, you’re on your own to make something up. That’ll be posted tomorrow and will finish up the Wisp Warlock content. I’ll get the full document prepared alongside it.

14 notes · View notes

aawesomepenguin · 3 years

Text

SONIC RANGERS, EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT IT, LINK FOR ALL SOURCES AT THE END

Ok, the time has come. I spent my entire day doing some searches on the 4chan website, picking and trying to find every nugget of information I could find that I was 100% sure it was connected to Sonic Rangers.

I’ll get this right out of the gate: I’m 95% sure the next main Sonic game will be open world, and what will follow is all my evidence towards it. It’ll be uncharted territory for the Sonic franchise, and we’ll need to see how it pays off.

Also, spoilers for Sonic Rangers, but kind of broad ones, so in my opinion, your experience wouldn’t be ruined if you read all of this. But if you’re one of those that want to go 100% blind, then I think the time to jump off this ship is now.

Here we go.

As it turns out, as I did some digging of my own, and thanks to other observant people, I can confirm that the “Sonic Rangers” name has been circulating on the Internet way, WAY before the accidental leak revealed on May 27th. I will show an entire timeline of these discoveries, and how they connect.

But okay, before we dive in, a general vision of Sonic Rangers: the game will take a brand new approach with the character, placing Sonic in an open world for him to explore. Where through his speed, he’ll do platforming challenges, do puzzles, fight against badniks, etc. When fighting against enemies, the player gains XP, that can be used to give Sonic different abilities. Spread through this world are bosses, where after you defeat them, Sonic obtains orbs, and when enough of them are gathered, Sonic can enter Special Stages, that are structured like a Sonic Generations/Sonic Unleashed boost level. When you complete them, you get a Chaos Emerald.

Ok, now let’s go to the 4chan leaks. From what I can tell, SEGA has been inviting different test groups to testplay their next main Sonic game, under a strict NDA. After it, SEGA collects feedback from the testers. I can’t exactly pinpoint when SEGA began to do these tests, but if I had to guess, it has been around as early as March 2020.

1st Occurrence

In July 2020, another fake leak claiming to be the 30th anniversary game showed up on 4chan, but then, as an answer to it, a person that has really played a test version of the next main Sonic game called the fake leaker out. The person that has put their hands on the next main Sonic game had the following to say:

“I playtested the game back in march and played it for an hour. There were no levels just an overworld. You’re full of s***.”

In another post, the person that got their hands on the testing version of the next main Sonic game, had the following to say:

“It was called Sonic Rangers when I played it.”

1st Occurrence analysis

I believe that the person that played the test version of Sonic Rangers has erroneously interpreted the open world as an overworld, which makes sense. Sonic Rangers name gets dropped for the first time.

2nd Occurrence

In August of 2020, another person that played a test version of Sonic Rangers, stated the following about the next title on the Sonic series:

“It’s not an adventure remake. I playtested it. They ARE working on something, but if they take feedback me and the other panelists gave them, SEGA might change quite a bit from what I ended up playing.

Open World

Set on a gloomy, grassy, uninhabited island dotted with ruins.

Big BOTW influence, little korok-like puzzles scattered everywhere.

Robot/alien bosses scattered throughout the island, defeat them and you get a Chaos Emerald.

Get all Chaos Emeralds and you gain entrance to the final boss area, a foggy forest you couldn’t enter before.

No major characters appeared aside from Sonic.

No story, just dumped in.

Turn Super Sonic to fight the boss, he’s a giant colossus-like entity that you climb, hit his weak points.

These could all be changed because I played a couple of months ago and there still hasn’t been any reveal, so I assume they might be reworking a lot.”

2nd Occurrence analysis

As you can see, in this version, some of the elements that were talked about in the most famous leak aren’t present, some missing elements were added later, but the basic was already present and in place. Sonic can travel through an open world, doing puzzles, defeating badniks and fighting against bosses, to then fight against a final boss as Super Sonic.

The most interesting thing is how the person that leaked these details claimed that they played it “a couple of months ago”, meaning that this version could take place after the build shown in the first occurrence. Some things have changed since then.

Another cool thing that I wanted to point out was that this build uses placeholder from previous Sonic games. During the final boss, the theme for the first boss fight against Infinite from Sonic Forces is used.

3rd Occurrence

In January of 2021, another anonymous 4chan user talked about Sonic rangers, once again mentioning the name “Sonic Rangers.” As their version is pretty edgy, and negative because Sonic Negativism gets clicks, I’m going to present it in a unbiased manner, and be direct to the point on what they said.

Sonic Rangers, around the end of 2020, was presented once more to a select group of people, two demos were shown. The first one allows exploration of the open world under a time limit of twenty minutes, and another demo that has an apparent Final Boss battle.

Open world is filled with small enemies, puzzles, and platforming challenges.

Completing puzzles, challenges and defeating badniks gives XP to the player as a reward, that can be used to unlock abilities for Sonic.

Among the abilities that Sonic can unlock, there is the “spincycle”, where after pressing the Y button, Sonic begins to create a line behind him, and if the player creates a circle-ish shape around the enemy or a group of enemies, Sonic attacks all the enemies that were “marked” within the spincycle line.

Homing Attack that can target multiple enemies at once, from Sonic Lost World, is back.

There are lots of bosses spread through the open world, when they are defeated, Sonic gets some “orbs”.

If the player gets enough orbs, he can access the “Cyberspace”, essentially this game’s special stage.

The cyberspace levels are like the boost levels in Sonic Generations.

When beating a cyberspace level within a certain amount of time, the player obtains a Chaos Emerald.

New voice clips for Roger Craig Smith were used.

Some new music was made for this build.

In regards to the demo where the player faces the final boss:

After reuniting all the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic can go through a dense fog that the player couldn’t access before in the open world.

A Giant Tree Robot is the apparent final boss.

Fly as Super Sonic using the spincycle and other abilities that were unlocked throughout the game to help defeat the final boss.

Can’t take damage, on a timer of rings. A Ghost girl refills the player’s ring count multiple times.

Demo ended after defeating the boss.

3rd Occurrence analysis

As you can see, this version polished even further the concepts that were talked about in the second occurrence. Instead of getting Chaos Emeralds after defeating a boss, Sonic gains orbs, where after this Sonic has to go after EVEN more bosses to get more orbs. With these orbs, the player can access a Special Stage, named Cyberspace, where you’ll be able to play a more traditional like Sonic game, to get the Chaos Emeralds.

This certainly helps the game longer, which is a plus for me. We’ll probably have seven boost levels, with them being treated like a Special Stage. They also added a XP system, and the main gimmick of this game, the spincycle, was shown in the trailer for Sonic Central.

Sonic will keep building up abilities, which is something I believe the player will be able to use them as different strategies on how to beat different types of bosses.

4th Occurrence

youtube

Sonic Central takes place, with a trailer for a new Sonic game at the end. Sonic is running through a forest, and then he begins to glow blue, creating a pixel effect, with a line following him. Sonic then runs in a circle with this new ability that makes him glow blue, and then exits screen.

4th Occurrence analysis

With the context we’ve piled up from previous occurrences, you can put some pieces together. Sonic is clearly activating a spincycle, the main gimmick for this new game, just like how it was said in the January 2021 leak. And just like how the leaker said, Sonic formed a circle-ish shape with this ability in the teaser trailer. Sonic creates a blue energy, creating a line behind him, allowing him to make patterns with it, maybe creating a shape that could surround his enemies?

5th Occurrence

Dataminers and modders are able to get their hands on the 4K trailer for the new Sonic game, finding out that the name of the game is, Sonic Rangers.

5th Occurrence analysis

It perfectly fits with what was stated previously in 4chan threads, specifically, the one from July 2020 and the one from January 2021. Helping give the 4Chan leaks even more credit.

6th Occurrence

SEGA, while sending out press kits to news websites, ends up slipping out the name for their next main Sonic game, Sonic Rangers.

"Announcing new console experiences, Sonic Colors: Ultimate and Sonic Rangers, further details on Netflix's Sonic Prime, mobile news, musical events and much more!"

-SEGA

It was an accident, and SEGA stated they sent an erroneous version, and when pressed about the Sonic Rangers name, it didn’t dwell into it any further.

6th Occurrence analysis

Coming straight from SEGA’s mouth, the name for the next main Sonic game is gonna be Sonic Rangers. This fits a lot with the rumours that came from 4chan from July 2020 and January 2021, making it EVEN MORE likely that the next main Sonic game is gonna be an open world game.

Conclusion

And that’s where we’re at now in terms of Sonic Rangers news. In my opinion, I’m 95% certain that these leaks are legit. Keep in mind that after the Sonic Rangers name came to light, 1001 other rumours were created, but these I have my doubts, since they now have a sturdy base, they can make up more stuff to go along with it.

My opinion: I’m particularly excited for this next main game. Sonic Rangers deals with uncharted territory for the Sonic series, and I feel like it could be very fun. But of course, I’m a guy that’s mostly chill and cool with most Sonic media out there, so form your own opinions.

Anyway...

HYPE FOR SONIC RANGERS!

Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4, Source 5 and Source 6.

#Sonic Rangers #Sonic the Hedgehog #SEGA #Sonic News #Sonic Speculation #Sonic #Sonic 2022 #SC2021 #Sonic Central

348 notes · View notes

blazehedgehog · 5 years

Note

After Forces, is it a good idea to try the boost gameplay again? Or is a new idea for Sonic in the cards?

I think the boost gameplay is always a good idea.

But here’s the thing with game development, okay, and this is something you realize when you get really deep in to the weeds:

Nothing is impossible, it just requires the right team to do it. A good, fully 3D Sonic game? 100% possible. And I’m not talking about Sonic Adventure or anything like that, I mean better than that.

But it requires the right team to do it.

If I had the time and the skill, I’d make a boost-focused Sonic game that emphasized the race track aspects. Build looping circuits that let you run laps with tons of side roads to take you to different parts of the level. Make it a big, pseudo-open world, but unlike most modern driving games where you’re punished for leaving the track, in my game, that’s where you put all the platforming.

Give it a mission based structure, so some missions require you to race down the track at maximum speed, take specific routes to a goal, and other missions require you to jump off road and platform around slower areas. But it’s all in the same big huge playground environment.

I realized this because it suddenly clicked in my head that Sonic games get better the more you replay them. I hate Sonic Rush the first time I played it, because a lot of the fun of that game is learning its levels and mastering them, and this is true of a lot of the faster Sonic games. I’d like to think Sonic Team realized this, too, but they always handle it poorly, like making you grind out resources in Sonic Rush Adventure or Sonic Unleashed. Even as up to Sonic Lost World, you had to grind out resources, which meant revisiting prior levels.

But it’s all about context. In one context, it looks like grinding to stretch out the play time (and I’m sure that was also intentionally part of the design), but it’s also getting you to go back and replay levels, to learn their layouts a bit more. No matter what, though, it feels forced. So how do you fix that? You look at games like Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, those old collect-a-thon platformers of old, where you could spend upwards of an hour in a single level and never realize it. The same is true of Super Mario Odyssey. You become intimately familiar with these worlds.

To encourage that kind of familiarity in a Sonic game, you build the biggest race track in the world with dozens of inroads and shortcuts. Tons of space to run around and go fast, with lots of spaces in between the roads where you can slow down and explore.

I think kart racers like Mario Kart, Crash Team Racing, and Sonic Racing Transformed are good places to look for ways to bring action game elements in to a racing environment. Different surface types like slippery ice or mud that slows you down, enemies that wander in to traffic, hazards that block the road at set intervals, etc. I’ve always had this vision of Sonic racing through Mario Kart DS’s Airship Fortress track, quickstepping around the barrage of bullet bills at the start, doing big drifts around the hairpin turns, and so on.

Sonic Team could do something like that, but they are their own team, with their own ideas for what Sonic should be, and it’s a very hyper-tight experience where you don’t even get camera control anymore.

I fully expect Sonic Team will do something different for their next Sonic game. Because that’s kind of just what they do; they are only consistent at being inconsistent.

#questions #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic team #sonic unleashed #sonic generations #mario kart #gamedev #Anonymous

18 notes · View notes

fullysowerewolf · 7 years

Text

My Likes and Dislikes for Sonic Forces

Likes:

The story, with its dark tone and mostly cohesive narrative, for me ranks up there as one of the best in the series. It’s tied with Unleashed currently as my 5th favorite Sonic story.

The supporting cast is superb and everyone in it are the most in character they have been since practically forever. Knuckles being the biggest example of this.

The gameplay is good, fun, and enjoyable across all four playstyles, though some are more fun than others.

The Avatar concept and how they were handled in the story with their own character growth arc.

The character creation is huge and has plenty of clothing options and physical features and is pretty great. Would really like to see it again in a spinoff game of sorts.

Eggman’s characterization was great and is at his most threatening and darkest in the series. Crusherthedoctor’s recent post on his portrayal explains this point well.

The voice cast brought their A game and have greatly exceeded expectations. Hopefully they will be able to keep up this kind of performance in the future.

Warren Graff actually did a decent to good job with translation, as both scripts are practically 1:1 with each other, with only a few things left out or mistranslated.

The music is amazing, though I know for some the amount of synth/techno is annoying, personally I think all the tracks are good to awesome. Another thing is how the all of the vocal tracks specifically tie into the themes of the story, which hasn’t been done since at least Black Knight.

Infinite. Just. Infinite.

The different changes and remixes to classic levels was a pretty cool idea and was done pretty well.

The fact that Forces and Mania are actually connected and tie into each other is a great idea and I hope that Sonic Team keeps doing more in depth continuity things like that.

Mind control wasn’t a factor or used here and that is a very good thing. Especially in the case of Shadow.

The Wispons are fun to use and are a big part of why the Avatar stages are so good to me.

The fact that Sega/Sonic Team are actually branching out into story driven DLC for the first time with Sonic, as well as slowly making other characters playable again.

On that note, Playable Shadow.

The character dialogue in the radio chatter mostly as well as in the cutscenes is really enjoyable. Everyone almost always has something important to say that fits with the events of the plot.

Dislikes:

The story has a moderate case of “Tell, don’t Show”, which brings it down a fair bit. It really could have used a few more cutscenes to really bring the ideas and plot points it was trying to make together.

Levels are too short and needed to be longer.

Classic Sonic didn’t serve much of a point other than to add another playstyle to the game. I know the his addition was probably set in stone long before Mania, but I feel they should have just left him out of it and just had the Phantom Ruby teleport to Forces at the end without Classic.

Sonic and especially Tails characterizations were wack and a bit off at times. Sonic’s is more forgivable since shrugging off (or at least pretending to) mental trauma is sort of his thing. But they still should have made more of a bigger deal about him being captured and tortured and should have shown the effect that had on him. Tails is much worse and this has been going on since probably Unleashed or longer. Hopefully these issues get addressed and fixed in a later story.

Not enough enemy variety, it was mostly just the same robots throughout the game. There really should have been different robots Eggman had to have made during his reign over the planet.

The difficulty was markedly rather easy, even on Hard mode.

Sega needs to not use any more returning levels and bosses after this game, this also includes the Wisps. It was tolerable here, but I don’t think the fandom can take much more of seeing Green Hill, Chemical Plant, the Death Egg, and so on after Forces, same goes for seeing bosses like the Egg Dragoon and the Wisps for the fifth time.

There wasn’t an option to change the height and body type of the custom characters, which is a damn shame. More species would have been nice too.

The last Infinite boss was a let down. I was expecting Infinite to go really crazy with the Phantom Ruby like he did during the Avatar’s Metropolis City stage, but he didn’t.

The “Is Classic Sonic from the Past or an actual other Dimension?” kerfuffle that still hasn’t been solved.

No (fake) Shadow or Chaos fight.

Why aren’t there more Wispons? I thought that the achievements stated that there were over 50 wispons? Why are there only six? It seems like a cop out to only have six (technically 7) actual wispons and have the rest just be upgrades to them. We could have had a Rocket Wisp rocket launcher or a Cyan sniper rifle wispon.

Misc.:

These are various likes, dislikes, and mehs that I found not too big of a deal to put into the major ones.

D: Wish there was some way they could have incorporated actual, full on voice acting for the custom characters/avatars. With the ability to pick your voice like in Mass Effect.

M: I wish that the Avatar had a super form, or better yet, a Phantom Ruby powered form to fight Infinite with.

D: Why do they need to make a fake Metal Sonic? Couldn’t Eggman just use the real one?

D: I wish the forgotten Sonic characters were in this.

D: I wish there were more enemies in the final battle scene besides the known illusions, like other anthros working for Eggman either of their own free will or via force and other robots made by Eggman.

L: The return of “Long time no see”

L: That Jackals, Wolves, Dogs, and Bears are now officially canon Sonic species.

M: The Chaos Emeralds weren’t in the game. Would have liked a brief explanation about why no one used them in the story but it’s not that big of a deal so eh.

M: Dark Sonic wasn’t in it or made canon and neither was Hyper Sonic

M: Cream, Vanilla, and Gemerl weren’t in it.

M/D: Blaze wasn’t in it. They could have found a way to include her in there, I’m sure.

L: Some of Adventure’s plot points were brought up again.

L: That creepy chestburster moment during the final boss.

L: Those creepy giant, twisted Infinite abominations.

D/M: Sonic wasn’t the leader of the Resistance. I still think they could have really made a great character arc for him in Forces if they had made him the leader. But I;m still glad they made Knuckles leader since he got some much needed character rerailment and him being the leader helped with that.

M: No Sonamy unfortunately

L: I like the little cube figure manifestations that appear when ever you have the Asteroid wispon equipped.

D: The final phase of the boss apes too much off of Sonic Colors’ final boss. It’s an okay fight all things considered, but I would have liked it if it had a more unique fighting style.

M: Some of the locations in the game have been changed from where they’ve been traditionally in Sonic lore, such as Green Hill being in the middle of a continent instead of being in South Island. This kinda irks me but it’s nothing that really ruins the story.

If I were to give Forces a rating, despite how dumb scores have become and how they’re abused and used arbitrarily by gaming media to put more or less value and worth on a game as a crappy shorthand measuring stick for what people would enjoy, I would give it objectively 7-7.5/10 and for my personal score 8/10.

It is a fun, enjoyable game. It’s not as good as Generations gameplaywise, but that doesn’t make it unplayable or not enjoyable in the slightest. Don’t buy into the ever constant Sonic Hatebandwagon and give it a shot if you want a high speed platforming experience. If you’re more a Mario style platformer fan, aren’t fond of the boost style gameplay, or don’t like a more serious toned Sonic game, I suggest skipping it.

#my post #sonic the hedgehog #sonic forces

21 notes · View notes

beastmodem1 · 4 years

Text

The match which intensifies the fights together with Hell's hordes by requiring you to always calculate the most effective methods to tear, tear, and keep alive.

sex flash games is exactly about effortlessly employing the massive number of murder programs available. Health, armor, and ammo pickups are at the absolute minimum in Eternal's quite a few fight arenas, and also the match as an alternative requires one to get these by massacring creatures in a number of different methods. Stagger a enemy and also you may rip them aside having a barbarous glory get rid of, which refills your health; douse a nut with the new flame thrower plus they'll start to spout armor pickups; or reduce them with the chainsaw to grab a few much-needed ammo. As a way to stay alive, you can not simply run around blasting madly, expecting to tear through what in your course; you have to run around aimlessly logically to keep your self in fighting stamina. Keeping all your numbers up suggests continually rotating through your attractiveness, chain saw , and flame-thrower kills while also ensuring you're using the appropriate gun for a specific career. A number of the roughest enemies finally have feeble factors that make it possible for you to snipe their lethal weapons, and you'll need to assess risks and knock out them fast. In the beginning, it feels like sex flash games has a totally unwieldy list of matters to deal with. Among all its own weapons and weapons, their various ammo counters, and your wellbeing, it may all become overpowering. With this much to stay at heart at all moments, it will take somewhat to get familiar with sex flash games. And constantly replicating the activity to pull your weapon up to inspect ammo counters and decide which weapon to use on the monster about to tear off your face can really feel antithetical to sex flash games's run-and-gun, rip-apart-everything strategy. After getting the hang of it, however, all sex flash games's many elements bond in a cascade of mayhem that produces you in to the brainiest killing machine across. This isn't the sort of shooter in which your twitch responses and aiming abilities will take you Eternal can be actually a casino game at which you've got to become constantly restraining your second movement, executing a calculus of both carnage to maintain yourself alive and create what dead. Every moment is all about analyzing the battle to get the very next enemy you are able to stagger and slice aside for wellbeing or ammo, finding out which enemy is your top priority and precisely what guns you'll need to go on out it safely, and where you will need to go in order to take the pictures you'll desire or keep the monsters chasing you from getting their particular chance to rip and tear. The mental z of figuring out how how to maintain yourself alive is just a major part of what can make the sport fun, nonetheless it has the enhanced mobility that really lets sex flash games kick a metallic guitar solo and start shredding. Every big battle happens in a multi faceted arena adorned with jump pads and monkey bars that permit you to receive up to immediately, and also you provide a double-jump and horizontal dashboard go for avoiding attacks and crossing distances. A couple of arenas have their own insecurities, notably these where it really is easy to trap yourself in a good corner or back within a pond, however primarily, Eternal's flat design provides a good deal of chances to zip around like a bat out of hell, even constantly finding your ultimate target and analyzing if you need to set it on fire, then freeze it, cut it in half, tear it aside, or a combination of all of them. Everything makes nearly every single fight feel like a speeding train moments from moving off the railings, with tragedy only prevented as you are so damn very good at killing stuff. As soon as you have the rhythm of sex flash games, it turns into a brilliant extension of everything left sex flash games s trendy. Between conflicts, you spend your time with everlasting's mobility to navigate its own mind, twisting levels, and to uncover myriad top secret locations that hide upgrades and weapon mods. There is a much larger emphasis on platforming than in sex flash games, also perplexing through the surroundings to become around supplies a welcome breather amongst fights. A few of the platforming can be somewhat stressful sometimes, especially once you will need to clean big gaps to catch distant monkey bars or struck tacky partitions you may climb. For the most part, though, surfing the surroundings is nearly just as much fun since hammering via Hell's armies. These components will also be pretty forgiving, because of this simple fact that falling into the abyss currently just penalizes you with a little reduction of health rather than immediate passing. The campaign took me around 16 hours to finish, and that comprised tracking down the overwhelming majority of keys and finishing a lot of the optional fights that earn you more upgrade details. Running throughout is an extremely involved narrative, which seems like significant shift from your satirical, jokey tale of sex flash games. In which that match put you from the Praetor suit of some slayer who literally destroyed the radios attempting to provide circumstance for his boundless massacres, sex flash games is much more self-serious, always spewing proper nouns and personality names as if you're intimately familiarized with most of the actors leading Hell's invasion of Earth. A few of this humor of the last match continues to be, nevertheless most of the all pretty tough to trace in the event that you don't spending some time reading throughout the many collectible lore drops sprinkled across every degree. Happily, keeping upward with Eternal's puzzling plot is not actually an essential element of appreciating the game. Along with the main campaign, sex flash games also includes a multi player style called Battlemode. It foregoes the more customary deathmatch approach of sex flash games, at that a bunch of gamers catch the weapons and shoot each other, for an adventure in what type combatant takes about the use of this Slayer, fighting with a group of two competitions that play demons.

The Slayer-versus-demons technique of Eternal's multi player helps to maintain the puzzle-like experience of its own combat, even though beefing the challenge giving allies the ability to float and interact. Demons have a bunch of special capabilities --they can summon smaller enemies to fight to them, block the Slayer's ability to pick up loot for a brief time to prevent them out of curing, create cubes, or talk fans. Battlemode is a interesting take on Eternal's struggles, requiring you to use all your skills against enemies that are intelligent whilst the Slayer also to perform co ordinated assaults as the somewhat poorer demons. Playing with the demons sets things in a lesser pace but captures a somewhat diverse, a lot more tactical element of the fight calculations which are fundamental to sex flash games's game play. Everlasting's multiplayer is now a fun change of speed, particularly with the opportunity to perform as the demons, but its own steep learning curve implies it is a bit alienating to drop into, especially in case you have not put important time into this effort. There exists plenty to bear at heart no matter what role you take on in Battlemode, making it a tough multi player experience to get good at. The manner additionally doesn't add too much variety to this Eternal formula--to get Slayer players, but it's mostly just a more challenging variation of everlasting's effort. Dealing with the sonic role allows you decide to try among five different hellions, but while each performs just a little differently, the gist of each is pretty quite similar: Summon demons, take the Slayer. Battlemode is a nice diversion, although it's maybe not the important draw of everlasting by virtually any stretch, and also the novelty of confronting against other human beings does not add substantially into the match underlying method. However it may take a bit to acquire the hang of it, the intricacies of sex flash games's fight, along using its enhanced freedom and option-heavy level structure, create a great deal of white-knuckle moments which Boost every thing that made sex flash games function nicely. Its combat is just as quick and chaotic, but takes you to always test everything that's happening as a way to come out victorious. Upon getting the hang of the rhythm of sex flash games, it'll force you to feel as a demon-slaying savant.

#video games #video game #games #mobile games #android games #pc games #online games

0 notes

funkydoommachine · 7 years

Text

Sonic Forces Review: Stop Comparing it to Mania

So I recently played Sonic Forces on the PS4, and while I did enjoy it, there were some things about it I have to address, as well as some other things around it.

Spoilers contained, so press on if you either finished the story or don’t care about spoilers.

STORY

Alright, so the basic plot is this; Eggman is so fed up with Sonic beating him that he ‘gets serious’ and unleashed a brand new weapon on the world. Sonic is called to action during an attack and this new weapon, named Infinite, goes Brock Lesnar on Sonic and beats him. We’re next told (through text) that Eggman had easily taken over the world with Sonic out of the way, and for the past six months an underground resistance has formed to try and take the world back. So Sonic (who is actually alive, gasp), the Avatar (I’ll get into this later), and Classic Sonic (for whatever reason he’s here too) have to work together to defeat Eggman and bring the world back to peace.

The plot isn’t really groundbreaking, but this is Sonic the Hedgehog, I’m not expecting George RR Martin levels of writing. The plot is simple enough, the dialogue is nice and cheesy (and lacking in any PS2-era Shadow the Hedgehog angst). It’s a dumb little ride and I enjoyed it, even if it was a little short and I would have liked to see more cutscenes instead of text windows.

CHARACTERS

If you ask me, the characters are at their best written and performed in Forces. The voices match the characters perfectly (Vector is up for debate) and their lines are delightfully corny. Eggman has gone back to his roots of ‘legitimate threat who is quite menacing with only a little humour’ instead of the complete joke he’s been presented as for the last few games before. Sonic still has his 90s cool kid wit, and to be honest I’m fine with it. It’s how I know Sonic, and I’d rather have this instead of some bland edgelord. And speaking of bland edgelords, even Shadow is better performed this time, with Kirk Thornton giving him much more emotion and even a few sassy lines here and there in his DLC.

The game’s main villain is Infinite, a jackal who was head of a mercenary squad before turning full on edgelord with (surprisingly cool) virtual reality powers provided by the Phantom Ruby. He’s edgy to the point of parody, and you can tell that’s what the team was going for when creating him, and you can’t help but enjoy the copious amounts of teenage angst that ooze out of him like he was sweating a Simple Plan album.

But the star of the show, and the main selling point of the game, is the Avatar. Your OC. The newest member of the resistance. The Avatar only speaks in vocal grunts, but is actually a very important part of the plot, and the holds the key to defeating Infinite in the form of a Phantom Ruby shard which messes up his powers. I’ll get more into the OC below.

Some levels, when you beat them, will occasionally have an SOS signal coming from them. These are extra missions that require you to either take control of another player’s Avatar or to rescue a fellow resistance member. These aren’t mandatory of course, only for a bit of extra challenge and experience. Bonus levels also pop up depending on how well you do, and you can also beat them for extra accessories. Neato.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is the standard fair it’s been for the past few instalments, with a lot of Boost2Win, but it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. Modern Sonic’s levels are quite varied, with different paths depending on how skilled and eagle-eyed you are. Boosting (which is provided by Wisps and defeating enemies in Forces) is a double-edged sword, where you’re penalised for using it in the wrong areas and not paying attention. You can tell when you’re allowed to boost since Wisp pods will be provided, but even then it’s still a blast to just rush through and plow down enemies like toilet roll.

As I mentioned earlier, Classic Sonic is back. I have no idea why they brought him back, but here he is. And to be honest, it’s as shoehorned as it sounds. The gameplay for Classic is pretty janky, with floaty jumps making some parts of platforming difficult to navigate. The speed boost doesn’t last nearly as long from what I’ve noticed, the drowning countdown has shortened to the point where an asthmatic could hold their breath longer than him, and to be honest he slows down from high speed very quickly. I mean I guess he still has the Mania jump dash (oh yeah, forgot to mention this Classic Sonic is the Sonic from Mania, because for some reason they had to tie the two games together).

After beating the first level, you have the opportunity of creating your own character, choosing between a dog, wolf, rabbit, bird, cat, bear, or hedgehog (guess which one is popular amongst kids and memers), with each species actually having its own unique perk, such as birds having a double jump and wolves able to attract nearby rings like a Sonic 3 thunder shield. As you beat levels you collect more clothing and accessories for your donut steel, and achieving S-ranks and completing side missions nets you even more stuff. There’s even an experience system for each species, which gets you even more accessories. The OC controls quite well, with responsive controls and opting for a grappling hook attack instead of a homing attack, and the lack of a jump attack is replaced by Wispons; weaponized Wisps that you can swap out on the fly before each level. There’s a wide variety of Wispons, including Burst that fires a flamethrower attack and allows a frequent jump when powered up, and a lightning one that uses an electric whip attack and lets you use the ring dash. Completing side quests unlocks Wispons with side-effects, including a shield and starting with rings. Changing Wispons is required for different paths and collectables. In some levels, Sonic and the Avatar will team up and you can control between the two simultaneously, combining their powers to create Captain Planet get through different challenges. Some parts include a Double Boost section, which after a quick button mash, lets you plow through enemies while cheesy butt rock cheers you on.

MUSIC

One thing many can agree on is that the only consistently good part about Sonic games is the soundtrack, and Forces is no exception. The theme song, Fist Bump, is a delightfully upbeat and corny butt rock tune that you can’t help but smile when you listen to. Especially if you’re a Hoobastank fan. Infinite’s theme song (named, well, Infinite), performed by Dangerkids, is Ow the Edge in all the best ways. The nu-metal inspired track includes lyrics talking about how cool and awesome Infinite is, and it’s so hilariously catchy that you’ll likely fall in love with it unironically.

Modern Sonic’s music ranges from techno and dubstep-inspired beats to full-on punk rock chords that many fans know the 3D games for. Tempo and tone change depending on which part of the stage you’re on, which I love.

Classic Sonic, which once again goes for a chiptune-feel, is also enjoyable... for the most part. Green Hill’s bleeping goes so high at some points that it’s almost uncomfortable to listen to, but the tunes are all catchy and memorable.

The Avatar’s music, my personal favourite, opts for more techno and D&B inspired tracks, which include lyrics that reflect your poor Coldsteel’s thoughts while rushing through that particular stage. I love these ones, they’re a welcome change and it’s not all the time you get lyrics during an action stage, making me remember the good times of City Escape.

PROS AND CONS

I know I’ve mostly been singing this game’s praises so far, but of course it definitely has its flaws. But the game does try to make up for them.

The story, and the levels, feel far too short compared to previous titles. There are thirty stages, not including bonus levels, and a lot of them feel like they were beaten in a flash. When you know what you’re doing, you can beat most of them in circa 2 minutes each. Granted, the levels were designed by newcomers to the format, and for their (I assume) first go, they did quite well. Plenty of branching paths and secrets to look for, and the secret/bonus levels provide plenty of challenge.

The Avatar creation leaves a bit to be desired, being unable to combine some accessories or change the colour of others, opting for just having a different set colour for the same thing. But again, this is the first time we’ve had this on an official Sonic game, and for the first try, I’m satisfied. Adding side-effects for species and Wispons provides plenty of replay value to make up for the short story.

The villains of the game are made up of Eggman, Infinite, Chaos from Adventure, Zavok from Lost World, Metal Sonic and Shadow. The last four are actually virtual reality projections created by Infinite’s powers, which I thought was a nice twist in the story instead of just having them brainwashed or whatever, but my gripe is you don’t get to fight Chaos or Shadow. It’s a shame, considering how fun they were to fight in previous titles, but the bosses we do have provide fun challenge. The final boss (Eggman in a giant robot, because thank god Eggman is actually the last boss again instead of Infinite hijacking the finale as all-powerful allies of Eggers tend to do) is a three-stage fight compiled of tactics mirroring previous bosses. Though I see this as the previous bosses warming you up for the finale, and the final boss did provide plenty of challenge. And in good Sonic fashion, you’re rewarded for using your abilities carefully and in the right moments in the form of doing more damage and a faster completion time.

FINAL WORD

As short as the main story was, Sonic Forces provides plenty of replay value in the form of extra challenges and character types that challenge you to find all the collectables and get all the S-ranks, which you are rewarded for with more things to bling out your Sonichu with. I still haven’t completely beaten it yet, despite having beaten the story in a few hours. Plus the DLC will be free, and for a AAA title, its RRP is pretty reasonable. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re a fan of the 3D stuff.

Now if we could stop comparing this game to a 2D platformer starring the same character but plays and looks completely differently and was made by a completely different team, that would be lovely.

People aren’t comparing Mario Odyssey to Super Mario Maker, so stop doing it here please.

FINAL SCORE

7 Chili Dogs out of 10

#sonic forces #sonic mania #sonic forces review #jonno reviews

14 notes · View notes

keegames · 7 years

Text

Sonic Forces Review: Chains of Future Past

Ah, Sonic Forces. To many, it’s the OTHER Sonic game to come out this year. A few previous articles have mentioned my history with the series, and I promised a review of this game, so without further ado, here goes.

Sonic Forces is an odd little game, in that it seems it was made to please all types of Sonic fans. The core of the gameplay of both Modern Sonic and your custom character (more on that later) is the tried-and-true racing-platfomer-hybrid first used in 3D Sonic by Sonic Unleashed and then adapted into Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations. However, it also features levels starring Classic Sonic similarly to Generations, and it has a few levels based on Genesis Sonic zones (though with more changes to their aesthetics than Generations; more on that later). It also features an attempt at a more serious (some would say “edgy”) story, similar to that of the Sonic Adventure games, and a create-a-character feature sure to appeal to the series’s more imaginative fans. The premise of the main plot is even similar to the SatAM show and the early Archie comics. Unfortunately, it would be a lie to say that all these discrete elements come together strongly. Still, despite its flaws, there’s a lot of fun to be had in Sonic Forces. Hopefully this lengthy write-up gives you a better idea of the game’s pros and cons.

Gameplay

Sonic Forces features four gameplay styles that the player is shuffled between across its various stages (30 main stages/boss fights, plus 13 or 14 short secret levels that are entirely 2D platform challenges based on singular level gimmicks). Unlike other Sonic games that feature multiple gameplay styles, however, three of the four styles control relatively similarly with a single core mechanic differentiating them (or, in the case of “tag team,” not differentiating them).

Let’s start with Modern Sonic. Modern Sonic, in terms of abilities, is most similar to his Colors incarnation, featuring a double jump and a boost that is only filled by either collecting Wisp Capsules or destroying enemies. His levels swap between 3D and 2D smoothly. Unlike Colors, he can perform the Quick Step (a short shift to the left or the right) at any point with the shoulder buttons, though like Colors, a few context-sensitive sections have him do this with a push of the joystick to the left or right as well. He also has the stomp and slide moves. Strangely, his drift ability is completely absent, which you may miss in a few parts of Metropolitan Highway, but generally won’t worry about otherwise. Like the previous games of this style, Sonic takes turns kind of wider than you’d expect from most 3D platformer characters, but it’s managing his momentum and movement in that way that makes this style unique and interesting. Set aside the assumptions put in place by Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, and you’ll be well on your way to mastering the game and blazing across the land.

Now, the custom character. You can choose your character’s gender, animal species, a few different head styles, eyes (shape and color), colors, voice, and victory pose. These options are relatively basic, which fits because Sonic characters don’t have much body variety anyway. Each species also has a special ability, but these are generally minor (wolf attracts nearby rings, rabbit has longer invincibility when hit, bird has a small double jump, etc.) You can still make some goofy looking faces with the right eyes, but the real meat of the customization is in clothing. Doing just about anything in the game will unlock more and more clothing pieces, from shirts to pants to jackets to capes to hats to glasses to shoes to kneepads to monocles to masks and more. There’s tons of this stuff and you can make some ridiculous creations. It’s actually one of the most fun things in the game.

The custom character’s basic controls are basically identical to Modern Sonic, though they lack a double jump unless you make a bird. Notably, however, they lack the boost, meaning that, though you still get moving at good speeds, you won’t quite be running over everything in your path. The custom character’s main form of attack outside of homing attacks is your equipped Wispon (Wisp weapon). Each of these serves two purposes: a regular attack that you can do at any time, and a special ability that you can perform when you pick up the corresponding Wisp. There are a variety of attacks and abilities, but they’re not all created equal by a long shot. For example, the Burst Wispon gives you a flamethrower that you can hold to torch enemies in front of you. This is one of the best ones due to not affecting your movement; you can run and jump freely while spraying fire, so you don’t lose momentum. Comparatively, the Lightning Wispon is an electric whip that forces you to either stop or move forward awkwardly while swinging (though its arc is pretty wide), and the Cube Wispon forces you to stop completely and attack twice to actually destroy enemies since its first swing traps them in cubes. (Destroying cubed enemies gives you extra rings, though, so at least it can get you more points than other Wispons.) Generally, you’ll find yourself annoyed by Wispons that stop your movement. One notable Wispon is the Drill, which gives you a powerful, super-fast charging attack that you keep your momentum from afterwards. It’s perfect for speedrunning.

The Wispon abilities that are activated from the item also vary. Burst lets you do a series of jumps until its meter runs out, Lightning allows you to dash along trails of rings and enemies, Drill grinds you across the ground and up walls, Asteroid makes you invincible for a period of time, etc. Some of these are good for finding alternate paths and hidden Red Rings throughout levels, while others are mostly utilities for making your life easier. Custom character levels are usually similar in layout and feel to Modern Sonic ones, apart from the changes made to make Wispons relevant.

Classic Sonic is the third character, and easily the worst. His levels are fully 2D, and on a basic level, he works like he would in Mania, right down to him having his Drop Dash. However, he just feels WRONG. Jump momentum is screwy, momentum when not rolling doesn’t work right, and he just generally feels like a brick with Sonic’s moves. Even without Sonic Mania’s release this year, he’d seem kind of off; with it, he’s just embarrassing. That said, his levels are designed competently apart from his final level, Iron Fortress, which is a giant pain in the ass, thanks to a forced autoscrolling section full of death pits. Classic Sonic is absolutely the worst part of Forces, and hopefully SEGA decides to re-hire the Mania team to appeal to Sonic nostalgia rather than trying and failing to make this sloppy gameplay style work. (Forces was in development before Mania, so it was likely too late to cut him out by time Mania started, so I give a slight pass in that sense.)

The fourth type of stage isn’t technically a new character; rather, it is Tag Team stages, where you control both Modern Sonic and your custom character at the same time. Controlling two characters at once is done very simply, as you are essentially controlling one character with both sets of abilities. There are the least of these stages compared to other characters. One notable thing about them is that there are very few 2D sections, with only one that lasts more than a few seconds. They also feature a “Double Boost” mechanic, where at certain pre-determined points you’re asked to mash a button, and after a few seconds, Sonic and your custom character rocket forward for a certain amount of time, running over enemies and gathering rings. It’s basically just a scripted sequence where you can rack up points, but it’s amusing to see your own creation as Sonic’s new best friend as the game’s cheesy vocal theme plays and you run over tons of enemies.

Notably, the game no longer has lives; you are instead awarded a bigger score bonus at the end of levels for dying less. Since previous 3D Sonic games already hurt your ranks for dying mid-level, having to spend lives to restart at checkpoints or retry levels would be a waste anyway. I’m not one to say that lives should be completely eliminated from games (and in fact I think Sonic Mania was better for having them, despite some complaints I’ve heard), but in this case they wouldn’t add to the experience in any meaningful way.

Level Design

Though level design is technically part of gameplay, it’s important enough in Sonic especially to need its own section. Since Modern Sonic, custom character, and Tag Team levels mostly hit the same design beats, I can talk about their design relatively interchangeably.

With pre-release footage, people were worried that levels were too short and too linear, with little to no shortcuts or things to do beyond blasting forward for a little bit. I can confirm, however, that the levels showcased pre-release are generally some of the least interesting, for whatever reason. Many of the levels have cool shortcuts and paths taken through either well timed jumps, sidesteps, homing attacks, or Wispon ability usage. Like previous Sonic games in this style, there’s more platforming in 2D than 3D, but generally rocketing your way through these levels, optimizing your performance, and finding the paths to take to collect all the Red Rings (there are five hidden in each level) is a lot of fun, with a single consistent caveat.

Many of the levels in Sonic Forces feel too short. This is less of a criticism of the actual time spent in each level, and more of a criticism of their pacing. Each level, consistently, feels sort of like two thirds of a level; each one seems like it should have a third section that brings together all the mechanics and layout techniques the level introduced and fully bring them to their conclusion. Instead, each time you get to where you think you’re about to reach that, the level ends instead. The thing that makes this especially sad is that what’s there tends to be a LOT of fun. You’ll be ripping through cool, interesting landscapes and you’ll wish you could do it more than you end up doing. As much fun as I ended up having with this game, I couldn’t help but feel a little short-changed from time to time.

Classic Sonic’s level design generally feels like a simplification of design you’d find in Sonic the Hedgehog 2; there’s nothing super special about it but it’s not bad either, apart from the aforementioned Iron Fortress. You’ll be more bothered by his actual control than with the levels.

The game also has its share of boss fights for each character, which range from “inoffensive” to “moderately fun,” though they’re never the best part of the game. The custom character probably has the best time with them, because using the Wispons to attack is more fun than homing attacking repeatedly, and some of them you can really speed up the fights with the right abilities. Unlike some other 3D Sonic games, they never really get frustrating, so I guess that’s a plus.

Graphics

Sonic Forces looks pretty nice. It varies by level, however. Forces’s take on Green Hill wasn’t quite as nice as Generations’s; it used more simple geometric shapes and less interesting foliage. Some of the other levels are much nicer looking, such as the Mystic Forest, Death Egg, Metropolis, and Empire Fortress stages. Many of the levels also have tons of action in the backgrounds, including giant robots, bombing runs, and in the case of the Empire Fortress stages, an all-out war. The lighting looks pretty nice, and the game runs at a rock-solid 60 frames per second on the PS4 version that I played. It won’t necessarily wow you, but it’s a game that looks pretty good.

Sound and Music

The game’s voice acting is cartoony and goofy, like you’d expect from a game about talking animals. Most of the levels have dialogue during them that advances the plot and describes action. There is an option to turn off all the in-level dialogue, which is useful when you’re replaying stages.

The music is pretty good, though not quite the series’s best. Each character has their own musical style in their levels. Modern Sonic generally has a mixture of guitars and synths in his levels. The compositions are cool, fast-paced, and sometimes kind of dramatic, but the lead synth in a lot of them isn’t quite idea. I still like a lot of the music, but I can understand it bothering you. The custom character has music characterized mostly by synths, other electronic instruments, and vocals. The lyrics are kinda cheesy, with the songs being about destiny, winning the fight, and other goofy things. You might find yourself singing along if you don’t take yourself seriously. Classic Sonic music actually uses Sega Genesis-styled instruments, though strangely enough it doesn’t sound like the kind you’d hear in a Genesis Sonic game. I can’t quite place the game I would hear these sounds in, though. A few are catchy and fun, but the others are pretty forgettable. Tag team stages have music similar to the custom character’s stages, but without lyrics (with the exception of one stage that reprises the game’s main hard rock vocal theme). They’re generally pretty forgettable.

Story

I can’t tell if Sonic Forces is taking itself seriously or if it’s being tongue-in-cheek about the series’s previous brushes with serious storytelling, but either way it’s pretty hilarious. Hearing goofy cartoon animals talk about the seriousness of war never stops being funny, whether intentionally or not. The story is always cheesy, going from an overly edgy cheesiness at the beginning to a more wholesome cheesiness near the end, where speeches about the power of friendship walk right out of your favorite anime into the dialogue. One notable bit of contrast is that, even in the serious parts of the story early on, Sonic himself is never particularly serious. He’s always chattering away and making wisecracks, which actually ends up being very entertaining due to everything else around him. If you only let yourself enjoy things that are legitimately good, you’ll probably be irritated, but anyone who can let themselves go and laugh at a B-movie atmosphere will have a lot of fun watching the cutscenes.

Replay Value

The game’s main story clocks in at only 4-ish hours over its 30 main stages/boss fights, but it doesn’t seem like it should really be any longer. It’s not particularly difficult to beat, either. There’s a good amount of replay value: like previous 3D Sonic games, you’re ranked on your score at the end of levels, so getting S ranks on every stage is one way to get a good amount of time from the game. Each stage also has five Red Rings to find, giving you a reason to revisit levels and find all the different paths. Once you’ve collected all the Red Rings in a stage, a set of Number Rings will appear, which have to be collected in order from 5 to 1 descending. And once you’ve collected all of those, a set of Silver Moon Rings will appear in a level, which must all be collected in a short period of time. Red Rings are the only of these collectibles that unlock extra levels; the others are purely for satisfaction, avatar items, and Trophies/Achievements. The extra levels aren’t particularly meaty; they’re purely 2D platforming challenges with either Modern Sonic or the custom character that are focused around singular gimmicks that don’t appear in the rest of the game. They’re fun enough, I guess, but they don’t really take advantage of what makes this kind of Sonic game special. Finally, the game has leaderboards for level times, though unsurprisingly they seem to be hacked to hell and back on the PC version. Since getting the best times in levels takes a lot of clever optimization, it can be a lot of fun to do your absolute best. If you’re not driven to better yourself, though, then Sonic Forces loses a lot of appeal, as a single playthrough will be over pretty quickly.

Conclusion

At its best, Sonic Forces is a fast-paced, fun action platformer where you’ll be blazing through cool environments and feeling the flow as you nail all your homing attacks, boosts, Wispon moves, quick steps, and slides. At its worst, you’ll be wondering why Sonic Team bothered to bring back Classic Sonic at all. Sonic Forces also doesn’t have much to offer in the way of exploration, nor is its main story all that long, so if you don’t like optimizing your performance then you’ll find yourself uninterested pretty quickly. Still, if you like the feeling of nailing every movement, Sonic Forces is a lot of fun, even if the levels feel like they should be a bit more fleshed out. If you already dislike the boost gameplay from Unleashed, Colors, and Generations, Forces won’t change your mind. If you enjoyed those games, or if you just have an open mind, most of this game can be a solid piece of entertainment. Plus, there’s a special joy that comes from dressing your cartoon animal up in completely ridiculous outfits. As a budget title (launching at $40), there’s a good amount of fun to be had in Sonic Forces, despite its issues. Hopefully Sonic Team takes the right lessons from this game and sticks to the fast-paced boost gameplay they’ve been building on and look to the future while leaving the imitations and celebrations of the series’s early days to the fine folks who made Sonic Mania.

Buy if:

you already like “Boost Sonic”

you enjoy optimizing your performance in short, action-packed challenges

you can stomach a couple of irritating bits

you enjoy chuckling at goofy, cheesy writing

Avoid if:

you’re looking for a solid Classic Sonic experience

you prefer longer games or exploration in your platformers

you’re not used to adjusting to controls that feel different from the genre standard

cheesy things irritate you

#video games #sonic the hedgehog #video game review #sonic forces #review

16 notes · View notes

tgpigeon · 7 years

Text

A Look at the Two New Sonic Games

Almost a full year ago I took a special trip to San Diego to celebrate the birthday of a fictional blue hedgehog. As nonsensical as that sounds, it was actually a very lively and enjoyable night with all the festivities going on. In between the flashy lights, blaring Sonic music, and numerous other bits of on-stage antics, two new upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog games were announced: Sonic Mania and “Project Sonic 2017” (now known as Sonic Forces). Here we are almost a full year later, both games are now very close to release, and we got quite a bit more info on each title last week alone thanks to E3. Let’s catch up with our speedy blue friend and see how things are coming along.

Let’s start with Sonic Mania, the 2D passion project created by a group of indie Sonic fans (and of course published by Sega). This game already looked amazing when it was first shown off during the anniversary event in San Diego, and felt just as great to play when we got our hands on it that same night. Since then, everything shown about the game has been an absolute treat. There’s something special about seeing the smoothly-animated pixel Sonic run through the expertly-crafted levels with the incredibly memorable music playing in the background. It all oozes charm and has an amazing attention to detail that only hardcore fans of the series themselves could pour into the game.

Roughly two weeks before the E3 festivities kicked off, we got a new trailer for the game showcasing some new animation drawn by artist (and Sonic fan himself) Tyson Hesse. These hand-drawn bits of animation both look and animate with a great deal of charm and whimsy. I’ve mentioned before how the sense of whimsy that Sonic evokes is one of the reasons I am such a big fan of the series, and this trailer encapsulates it so well. How bouncy and cheery everything is, right down to the smaller details such as how Sonic jumps into the air and spins before running off, makes this a very feel-good trailer. This is all accompanied by an upbeat, catchy new track by Hyper Potions titled “Time Trials”. And all this is before we even get into anything relating to the gameplay.

Sonic Mania consists of both brand new stages and remakes of select stages from earlier 2D games in the series. The most recent stage revealed is Chemical Plant Zone, returning from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. This stage does an excellent job demonstrating the design philosophy of returning stages: Act 1 sticks relatively close to the original level designs of the zones and offers some updates within them, while Act 2 offers a fresher take on these areas complete with new gimmicks. In Chemical Plant’s case, the purple water from the original level can now be turned to gelatin to bounce off, giving the stage much more vertical traversal than it had previously. This still blends well with Sonic’s more traditional horizontal speed thanks to the clever level design never killing the momentum. The entire game shown off so far seems to present this same level of care to make sure each level flows and controls just right. There is no doubt in my mind that this game will be a treat to both Sonic fans and the general gaming community.

The next game that Sega is presenting is the newest mainline entry developed by Sonic Team: Sonic Forces. This game combines both 3D/2D-hybrid Modern and pure-2D Classic versions of Sonic, much like 2011’s Sonic Generations. However, this title also adds a new customizable character to the mix, complete with a third unique gameplay style. Despite the large amount of fan characters flooding the internet, this is the first time in the series’ history where fans can officially customize their own creation to battle alongside the blue blur(s). This is honestly a smart decision, as it gives players who genuinely want to make their own characters the option to do so, while also allowing everyone else to mess around and create their own bizarre creations. This third character plays in a mixture of 2D and 3D much like Modern Sonic, but can use various gadgets and “wisp” power-ups for some extra platforming challenge. While this gameplay style admittedly doesn’t look as fun as the two Sonics, mainly due to the wisps making the gameplay appear a bit clunkier, it still appears overall fast-paced and enjoyable.

Sega has recently shown off demos of all three gameplay styles at E3 this year, as well as a new trailer. Although we have been slowly receiving information about this game for the past year, we got a much better view of the overall package now. Modern Sonic still has his fast-paced boost gameplay and Classic still looks to be a somewhat slower, 2D-only Sonic with a spindash instead of a boost ability. Classic Sonic looks to be fun to play as, don’t get me wrong, but having him here alongside Modern Sonic seems a bit redundant. It made sense in Sonic Generations, as that was a celebration of 20 years of the series and demonstrated how Sonic’s gameplay had evolved over that time. Now though, especially with Sonic Mania coming soon and scratching that classic itch (complete with seemingly more accurate classic physics), Classic Sonic feels a bit unneeded here. At the end of the day though, even if a bit redundant, both Modern and Classic seem like they will be about as much fun as they were in Generations.

There are some new additions to set this apart from Sonic’s 2011 adventure. The main one is the aforementioned custom character, but there is also quite a big tonal difference between the two games from what we’ve seen. Generations was a light-hearted romp through Sonic’s history that barely had a story, meanwhile Forces seems to be focusing a bit more on its narrative. It tells the tale of how Dr. “Eggman” Robotnik has already taken over the world and it’s up to Sonic and his friends to take it back. We are given a small taste of this in the gameplay demo, as the characters communicate to each other during the stages to discuss their current situation and plans. It’s nice to see all these characters in the plot again, and this implementation makes the cast feel much more like a grand team of friends. Hopefully the writing is solid, as I loved this type of stuff in games like Kid Icarus: Uprising and Star Fox and look forward to it here as well. I do hope it can be disabled during repeated stage play-throughs however, as hearing the same dialogue when trying for higher scores can potentially get tiring.

Ultimately this game looks to be using what fans liked about Sonic Generations as a base and expanding upon that. The trailer released for E3 also announced that previous series villains Shadow, Chaos, Metal Sonic, and Zavok will be returning along with a new mysterious villain. I am getting some Sonic Adventure vibes from how this game seems to have a plot with higher stakes, which makes me quite the happy camper. Hopefully the writing will be solid enough to add some excitement to the story without becoming too melodramatic. Meanwhile, Mania in general seems dead-set on improving the classic series in any way it can, bringing back even the smallest elements (elemental shields, level transitions, the classic trio all playable, etc.), while also adding it’s own improvements (improved graphics, the new drop-dash move for Sonic, both remixed and brand new stages, etc.). Between Mania looking like it will deliver an excellent classic experience and Forces offering a promising modern take on the series, it’s a great time to be a Sonic fan.

-Written by Rich, 2017

-Image credit to (in order of appearance) Gematsu.com, TheVerge.com, GameInformer.com, Comicbook.com, IGN.com

0 notes

thementalattic · 6 years

Text

We are nearing the end of the Ultimate Beastmaster Gaming Edition season, based on the Netflix reality show produced by Sylvester Stallone, The Ultimate Beastmaster, where competitors from around the world tackle the most vicious of challenge courses, the Beast. Only 2 more weeks after this and then the grand finale pitting all our beastmasters on a beefed up version of The Beast for the title of Ultimate Beastmaster.

In our gaming edition, there are no coins, rupees or souls to be won, but there is a certain kind of prestige, where one characters steps out of the ruins of the Beast, confident they are the Ultimate Gaming Beastmaster.

New challengers for this week are: Lara Croft (Core Design) (Tomb Raider), Miles “Tails” Prower (Sonic), Sly Cooper (Sly Cooper), Sephiroth (Final Fantasy), Cecil (Final Fantasy), Albert Wesker (Resident Evil), Michael Vick (Madden), Pit (Kid Icarus), Michelangelo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Marcus Phoenix (Gears of War), Lu Bu (Dynasty Warriors) and Sackboy (Little Big Planet). These new contestants, like those last week, come with sponsors: Drakulus, OverThinkerY, Hurricane Thought Process and joining us for the first time, The Shameful Narcissist

For the competitors, I took note of their skills from across all their videogame appearances, including crossovers such as Super Smash Bros. and other such games, matching these skills to the ones required to best the four levels of The Beast. I also took note of their individual styles, their restrictions and sometimes even clothing. Unlike competitors on The Ultimate Beastmaster, video game competitors bring their own clothing to the table, though they’re forbidden from using the many tools of their trade. Since this episode features the first competitors from fighting and point & click adventure game series, some conversion rules were necessary.

In addition to the above factors, body type, hair, fur, or any other realistic elements were also taken into consideration, as well as the characters’ overall level of athleticism.

For the Beast, the skills required are:

Climbing: Vertical movement while hanging.

Ledge Shimmying: Horizontal movement while hanging.

Running.

Jumping.

In addition to this, there are advanced skills such as Wall Climbing and Rope Swinging which grant the competitors an edge.

Below is an example of a skill set:

Tails Skill Set: Running, Jumping, Climbing. Tails Restrictions: Short stature. Tails advantages: Very fast, spin-up roll dash, helicopter tail (limited hover, limited glide, vertical jump boost).

Having this in mind, I ran Mr. Miles “Tails” Prower and his competitors through the course, noting the obstacles completed, the ones failed, whether they’d go for point thrusters or not and noting the final results. Below is an example of this, Tails’ Level 1 run:

Note, starting this week, the highlighted run will include the point breakdown!

Tails – Level 1:

Tails dashes up Bite Force (5), climbs the chain (5) and crosses the Grinder without issue, using his helicopter tail when needed for a little distance (15). Thanks to his tail he avoids falling off Faceplant and not only grabs the chain but makes it to the Energy Coils, where he jumps to the coil holding the point thruster (5) and using his boosted jump he presses the button (10) before making his way back, his tail giving him an edge on the long jumps (10). Carefully using his tail, he crosses the deadbolts (20) and gets the thruster (10), but his wall movement speed is too slow and the mag wall catches up to him.

Course Points 70. Thrusters: 2, 20 points. Level 1 Score: 90. Time: 4.5 minutes.

For the sake of brevity, considering the amount of competitors going through the levels, below are the rankings at the end of each level. Twelve (12) competitors start the competitions, then the top eight (8) make it to Level 2. After that it’s the top five (5) who make it to level 3 and the last two then advance to Level 4.

If you wish to know how a specific character’s run went to understand their score, let me know and I’ll relate their experience in the comments.

Competitors – Week 7:

In Paluthena’s name he’ll vanquish the beast!

He’s just here for stickers!

He’s got something to prove, that he’s not just a grunt in an armour.

He was once dark and edgy before embracing the power of Light and Glam Rock, now he’s here to show everyone the way!

Here in her blocky polygonal glory, the original Lara is here to prove she’s still better than the modern Laras!

Tired of fighting the same enemies every time, he’s here to prove he’s just as overpowered facing the beast as he is kicking you around!

His stats are through the roof, now let’s see if they mean anything facing the Beast!

Perhaps the only creature in the multiverse who can annoy the Beast.

He’s here with something to prove, that if you remove the impossibly big sword and the backing choir, he’s still a badass!

If we’re not careful, he’ll take everything not nailed down, even parts of the Beast!

He’s already calculated the precise angles and speed needed to leave everyone in the dust!

Here to show what a dangerous cocktail of superviruses can do for your athletic career!

Course breakdown:

Level 1 – Bite Force, 5 points. Chain to Grinder, 5 points. Grinder, 5 points each, 15 total. Faceplant, 5 points. Chain to Coil, 5 points. Energy Coils, 5 points each, 15 total. Deadbolts, 5 points each, 20 total. Mag-Wall, 5 points each section, 15 total. 3 Point Thrusters, 10 points each. Max Points, 115.

Level 2 – Spinal Ascent, 5 points each, 25 total. Spinal Descent, 5 points. Stomach Churn, 5 points each, 15 total. Digestive Track, 5 points. Jump from Digestive Track, 5 points. Dreadmills, 5 points each, 10 points total. Jump to Chain Reaction, 5 points. Chain Reaction, 5 points each, 20 total. Vertibrace, 5 points each, 25 total. 4 Point Thrusters, 10 points each. Max Points, 155.

Level 3 – Ejector, 5 points. Prism Strike, 5 points each, 10 total. Coil Crawl, 5 points each, 15 total. Hangman, 5 points each, 75 total. Pipeline, 5 points. Wall, 5 points. 4 Point Thrusters, 10 points each. Max Points, 155.

Level 4 – Individual points ignored. Reaching the top is worth 200. If no competitor reaches, then furthest along competitor wins.

Level 1 – Max Points 115 – Rankings. Ties broken by faster times.

Sly Cooper – 105 points.

Sackboy – 95 points.

Lara Croft – 95 points.

Michelangelo – 95 points.

Albert Wesker – 95 points.

Tails – 90 points.

Sephiroth – 90 points.

Lu Bu – 80 points.

Michael Vick – 70 points.

Pit – 60 points.

Cecil – 50 points.

Marcus Phoenix – 50 points.

Level 2 – Max Points 155 – Rankings. Ties broken by faster times. Scores are cumulative. Now including Level Score between parentheses.

Sly Cooper (145) – 250 points.

Lara Croft (135) – 230 points.

Tails (105) – 195 points.

Sephiroth (95) – 185 points.

Albert Wesker (90) – 185 points.

Michelangelo (80) – 175 points.

Sackboy (60) – 155 points.

Lu Bu (60) – 140 points.

Level 3 – Max Points 155 – Rankings. Ties broken by faster times. Scores are cumulative. Now including Level Score between parentheses.

Lara Croft (125) – 355 points

Tails (105) – 300 points.

Sly Cooper (45) – 295 points.

Sephiroth (90) – 275 points.

Albert Wesker (70) – 255 points.

Level 4 – Winner – Tails, sponsored by OverThinkerY

Two gaming classics faced each other on Level 4 this week, the very original Lara Croft in her polygonal glory, straight from the early titles of the series, made by creator studio Core Design; and Sonic’s partner and super-genius speedster, Miles “Tails” Prower.

Both competitors made it up Ricochet, with Lara taking an early lead here and across Full Tilt. On the Motherboard, Tails’ eponymous appendages help him not only catch up but overtake the original Tomb Raider, as her climbing speed is steady but slow, as she lacks the fast movement abilities of her Crystal Dynamics-created counterparts, which have both competed on early editions of this competition.

Bot competitors then make it across skyhook with a degree of difficulty, before facing off on Ventilator. Tails adopts a lift & hold strategy, using the entirety of his small frame to hold his position in between short lifts with his tails, while Lara goes for a traditional climb, back to one side of the vertical shaft and both supporting and pushing herself with arms and legs. Tails unusual strategy hits his stamina hard and Lara’s slow movement makes progress difficult.

In the end, for the first time in this competition, time runs out for the competitors, so their positions are by climb height, with Tails coming ahead by only a few meters.

The new Beastmaster to join the others in the finale is Miles “Tails” Prower!

That’s it for this week then, we’ll see you on the next edition of The Ultimate Beastmaster – Gaming Edition!

Week 7 of the #UltimateBeastmaster Gaming Edition is up, who will win this week?

Week 7 of the #UltimateBeastmaster Gaming Edition is up, who will win this week? We are nearing the end of the Ultimate Beastmaster Gaming Edition season, based on the Netflix reality show produced by Sylvester Stallone, The Ultimate Beastmaster, where competitors from around the world tackle the most vicious of challenge courses, the Beast.

#Athletics #Beastmaster #Characters #Competition #Fantasy league #Gaming #Lara Croft #Ranking #Skills #Sonic The Hedgehog #Sports #Tails #Ultimate Beastmaster #Video game #Week 7

0 notes

kkutlesa · 6 years