Sonic Team are so bad at this that you start to actually feel bad for them. Of course games like Sonic Heroes and Sonic 06 had these unnecessarily tortured developments that resulted in completely unwarranted human suffering, especially Takashi Iizuka on Heroes. But then you get games like Unleashed or Forces which are just flatly bad, and from what I've looked for I couldn't find any horror stories about developing them. The directors just came in and said, "alright, let's make something truly hideous."
I am not a nintendo fan, I resent them and their fans, but I do at least admire that they have some kind of quality control for their brands. If a Mario game comes out it can be relied on to be good if not great, but Sonic has absolutely zero quality control. It's why the average movies have garnered such rapturous reception from Sonic fans despite being otherwise generic kids movies: they are FINE!!! Do you know how long it has been since Sonic Team has made a Sonic game that can even be described as fine?? People joke "hire this man!" about fan content, but when Sega hired that man a good Sonic game came about it!!! It's genuinely baffling.
You don't really need to say anything about Sonic Forces to review it, honestly. People can see that it says Sonic and was developed by the Sonic Team and put 2 and 2 together that the game isn't good, no review needed. "Oh it controls so bads!" Yeah man, it says Sonic Team on the front doesn't it? "Christ I'm clipping through the floor!!" Hey buddy, didn't you see the Sonic Team logo there? This team developed some of my all-time favorite games in the 90s...Sonic Adventure, Nights, Ristar, Burning Rangers, they were just bursting with creativity of what games could be and what an interactive experience meant.
I don't wish to put all the blame on the developers, as a lot of them are just doing their jobs. If management says make a dogshit stage for Knuckles you aren't just going to refuse. I empathize with people working on something that probably isn't going to turn out very good. The leadership at Sonic Team and Sega seems woeful and the directors of these games seem to come in with their worst ideas underlined and bulleted. It's mostly just sad, Sonic Adventure obviously has a lot of jank but is so creative and energetic, so passionately made, that I admire it even when it is being willfully bizarre. I'm willing to go on that journey with Sonic Adventure because I know I'm not getting it anywhere else. Sonic Forces feels like it was made by the bargain bin, for the bargain bin, it's just nothing.
I am not a nintendo fan, I resent them and their fans, but I do at least admire that they have some kind of quality control for their brands. If a Mario game comes out it can be relied on to be good if not great, but Sonic has absolutely zero quality control. It's why the average movies have garnered such rapturous reception from Sonic fans despite being otherwise generic kids movies: they are FINE!!! Do you know how long it has been since Sonic Team has made a Sonic game that can even be described as fine?? People joke "hire this man!" about fan content, but when Sega hired that man a good Sonic game came about it!!! It's genuinely baffling.
You don't really need to say anything about Sonic Forces to review it, honestly. People can see that it says Sonic and was developed by the Sonic Team and put 2 and 2 together that the game isn't good, no review needed. "Oh it controls so bads!" Yeah man, it says Sonic Team on the front doesn't it? "Christ I'm clipping through the floor!!" Hey buddy, didn't you see the Sonic Team logo there? This team developed some of my all-time favorite games in the 90s...Sonic Adventure, Nights, Ristar, Burning Rangers, they were just bursting with creativity of what games could be and what an interactive experience meant.
I don't wish to put all the blame on the developers, as a lot of them are just doing their jobs. If management says make a dogshit stage for Knuckles you aren't just going to refuse. I empathize with people working on something that probably isn't going to turn out very good. The leadership at Sonic Team and Sega seems woeful and the directors of these games seem to come in with their worst ideas underlined and bulleted. It's mostly just sad, Sonic Adventure obviously has a lot of jank but is so creative and energetic, so passionately made, that I admire it even when it is being willfully bizarre. I'm willing to go on that journey with Sonic Adventure because I know I'm not getting it anywhere else. Sonic Forces feels like it was made by the bargain bin, for the bargain bin, it's just nothing.
spageddystyle
1 year ago