Zero Punctuation: Sonic Forces

Bedinsis

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Was it just me or was there quite a bunch of references to "rape" this week? Without any coating around, just stating the word aloud?

I might misremember, but Yahtzee normally seems to be more... tactful when that subject is brought up/use other analogies.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Jun 17, 2009
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I know how to fix EA. Take a page out of Aliens and nuke them from orbit.

As for Sonic, they need to take a page from Mario and pin down a fucking formula and stick with it.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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Jul 15, 2013
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Am legitimately curious as to what goes on in the minds of Sonic Team's creative department. It's fascinatingly vapid as if the only employee left is an ex-finance lawyer relapsing into heavy drug abuse to drown out a severe midlife crisis. Is anyone even there anymore? Or is it an archaic computer with malfunctioning market-research algorithms producing each title?
 

darkrage6

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Well I saw that review coming from a million light years away, I liked this game but I knew Yahtzee would hate it.
 

sageoftruth

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Xsjadoblayde said:
Am legitimately curious as to what goes on in the minds of Sonic Team's creative department. It's fascinatingly vapid as if the only employee left is an ex-finance lawyer relapsing into heavy drug abuse to drown out a severe midlife crisis. Is anyone even there anymore? Or is it an archaic computer with malfunctioning market-research algorithms producing each title?
I'm curious about why they're banking so heavily on story in these games. I watched a Lets Play and my first thought was, "If people enjoy playing it, that's fine, but are any of them actually capable of taking these cutscenes seriously?"

Has the Sonic team been paying any attention to the relative success of the other super-old franchise for all ages, Mario? The plot in that still hasn't gone far beyond "Oh no! Bowser kidnapped the princess again!" and most of the fans are fine with it, because I'm pretty sure no one or almost no one, is looking for a compelling plot while playing Mario, unless it's an RPG game.

Not to mention, the positive reception Sonic Mania got, and while I haven't played it, I assume that had a threadbare plot as well.

It's like they're dead-set on getting people to take their cast of goofy furry characters seriously, but each time, it just makes them look completely tone deaf.

I have a hypothesis. Maybe THEY outgrew their characters as well. Maybe they're tired of writing the same simple plots, and want to move onto something that tests their creativity more in the story department, but are stuck with Sonic and his friends, because those bills aren't gonna pay themselves, so they just go "Ok! We haven't been able to do it yet, but maybe this time we can finally write a mature plot for Sonic that the fans will actually enjoy."

It's really kind of sad when I think about it that way. Someone save these poor souls.
 

Darth_Payn

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Bloody hell, another Sonic game? I had to double check the date to make sure it's not a repeat of the last one.
Bedinsis said:
Was it just me or was there quite a bunch of references to "rape" this week? Without any coating around, just stating the word aloud?

I might misremember, but Yahtzee normally seems to be more... tactful when that subject is brought up/use other analogies.
This is Yahtzee, he's not above mentioning cancerous tumors in his jokes/insults.
 

Catfood220

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This was the funniest Zero Punctuation in ages, its always best when he has something to tear apart rather than basically go "its alright I suppose even if it is a bit boring". I think I spent far too much time laughing at the fact that his user character was basically a cat in a hat.
 

cowabungakid

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Bedinsis said:
Was it just me or was there quite a bunch of references to "rape" this week? Without any coating around, just stating the word aloud?

I might misremember, but Yahtzee normally seems to be more... tactful when that subject is brought up/use other analogies.
Pretty sure you're misremembering. Just search "rape" on the Zero Punctuation Wiki...
http://zeropunctuation.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Search?query=rape

Also most of the references in this one spring from the first one about molesting household animals, that's an old joke at the expense of Sonic fans he's made quite often, although not always with sexual connotations (e.g. Sonic Generations review: "Oh my god, it's actually good! Sonic doesn't suck any more! Our savior has returned! Paint your household pet blue and mutilate baby foxes in thanks!").

Also also: what the actual fuck, it's only been about 2 months since the last Sonic game? Who is buying these in large enough numbers to keep pushing them out like this?
 
Jan 27, 2011
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Honestly, I don't know why they didn't just iterate on/improve the Lost World (3DS) Formula. There was some damn good stuff in there, outside of the forced tilt controls, some puzzles being occasionally really slow and some of the wisps altering gameplay WAY too much.

Seriously, take that 3D parkour style mechanic thing, make more levels that fit that style of game, and make the Wisps behave like Mario powerups which just give you a nifty little extra thing you can do (like an extra jump, or a homing attack that can go through spikes, or shoot out particles that stun enemies, or whatever), and bam, voila, you have a pretty decent game!

sageoftruth said:
Maybe they're tired of writing the same simple plots, and want to move onto something that tests their creativity more in the story department, but are stuck with Sonic and his friends, because those bills aren't gonna pay themselves, so they just go "Ok! We haven't been able to do it yet, but maybe this time we can finally write a mature plot for Sonic that the fans will actually enjoy."
Well, they do a terrible job of it. I used to be one of the voices going "I want a serious sonic plot!". After how much I enjoyed the story in Colors and Lost World, though, I realize the series is best when the plot is lots of wacky silly hijinx with juuuust enough danger that you're willing to buy into it. Seriously, Sonic himself is at his best when he's a goofball ADD-ing his way through life occasionally taking the piss out of something and leaping before he looks.

Honestly, the general plot of forces was something I'd already thought of as a neat idea, but the point of that game would have been to point out that "Yo, these plots kinda suck when you try to make it seriously. Look how much better it is when Sonic gets freed from the robot he's stuck in and is now poking fun at everything!"

Some series are able to handle serious plots. Sonic is not one of them. It's brightly colored forest animals saving the world from a fat engineer by running really fast. Dark-ifying that kind of thing almost never ever works. Just don't try it.
 

Steve the Pocket

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If you want to make a good 3D Sonic game, just make it like Mirror's Edge but in third person, which was the only thing wrong with that game's core mechanic. Between this and Mania, I'm tired of the people who insist you can only make a good Sonic game if it's literally a level pack for Sonic 3 being seemingly proven right.
 

Jorpho

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aegix drakan said:
Honestly, I don't know why they didn't just iterate on/improve the Lost World (3DS) Formula. There was some damn good stuff in there, outside of the forced tilt controls, some puzzles being occasionally really slow and some of the wisps altering gameplay WAY too much.

Seriously, take that 3D parkour style mechanic thing, make more levels that fit that style of game, and make the Wisps behave like Mario powerups which just give you a nifty little extra thing you can do (like an extra jump, or a homing attack that can go through spikes, or shoot out particles that stun enemies, or whatever), and bam, voila, you have a pretty decent game!
I was not aware that Lost World 3DS is regarded fondly.

I wanted to come here to say that it seems redundant to try focusing on Sonic since that was pretty much what they did with Sonic Colors and Sonic Lost World, isn't it?
 

ToastyMozart

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IIRC the common theory is that the game was supposed to center on the Classic, Modern, and Boom sonics, but the latter was scrapped and hastily replaced with the create-a-character after the Boom game crashed, burned, and exploded.

aegix drakan said:
I used to be one of the voices going "I want a serious sonic plot!". After how much I enjoyed the story in Colors and Lost World, though, I realize the series is best when the plot is lots of wacky silly hijinx with juuuust enough danger that you're willing to buy into it. Seriously, Sonic himself is at his best when he's a goofball ADD-ing his way through life occasionally taking the piss out of something and leaping before he looks.
I've heard the comics were supposed to be a lot like that (a mix of serious plot and silly hijinks), at least once they fired the hack that used to write it and rebooted it under the pen of someone competent. That is secondhand info from people who read Sonic comics though, so you may want to keep a small packet of salt at hand.

Xsjadoblayde said:
Am legitimately curious as to what goes on in the minds of Sonic Team's creative department. It's fascinatingly vapid as if the only employee left is an ex-finance lawyer relapsing into heavy drug abuse to drown out a severe midlife crisis. Is anyone even there anymore? Or is it an archaic computer with malfunctioning market-research algorithms producing each title?
I've always been fond of Jontron's rendering of them as a group of incredibly burned-out rockstars. Though the more likely truth is probably just that the people who remember making the good games have all moved on.

Or they're stuck in a really non-committal spot of wanting to try new things but not wanting to gravitate away from the previous entries; resulting in a bunch of half-baked new ideas inelegantly smashed together with all the previous games' ideas in a manner that pleases nobody. If they had just done a Mania (or even Generations) -esque game of level-to-level with no extraneous bullshit between it could have been a good game (depending on level design). If they doubled down on the story idea and made Sonic Adventure 3 then it probably could have been good. But instead they opted to do neither and made it shit.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Dec 25, 2010
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I've said it for a while now. Sonic just needs to die. They've hit such a low spot that no matter how good future Sonic games may be, I won't be touching them with a 10-ft. pole. And not just that. I literally think besides maybe Five Nights at Freddy's, Sonic has just... The worst fans. Even the bloody furrys try to distance themselves from the Sonic fandom. That's how bad they can get.
 

Igor-Rowan

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For months I looked up the internet and I think I finally found the one person responsible for the image problem of the Sonic fandom: Bryon Beaubien (aka PsyGuy), a guy that during the 2000's had a Deviantart account and a site dedicated to Sonic webcomics. And he recently had to leave the internet because of his accusations of sexually harassing underage girls piled up so much that no attorney wanted to work with him...

If Chris-chan makes Sonic fanboys look like weirdos, Psyguy is responsible for 90% of the jokes Yahtzee made in this video.
 

Blazing Hero

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Bedinsis said:
Was it just me or was there quite a bunch of references to "rape" this week? Without any coating around, just stating the word aloud?

I might misremember, but Yahtzee normally seems to be more... tactful when that subject is brought up/use other analogies.
Generally that is true but only when he doesn't out right hate something. When reviewing a game he absolutely loathes he throws tact out the window and rips into it bone deep.