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How I Would've Made Sonic Forces
- How I Would've Made Sonic Forces
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How I Would've Made Sonic Forces
Infinite > 05-31-2020, 07:54 PM
So I think fanfic counts in these Fan Creations. If it doesn't, please let me know. This is something I made a bit back and I'm wondering what you guys think about it. So maybe print this out, grab a cup of tea, sit in your favorite reading chair, and enjoy the ride.
The game begins with….a cutscene. A jackal walks in a calm field of grass but he then notices smoke in the distance and realizes his home town is on fire. He then runs to the town. This moves you to the very first level of the game which is a grass field (yes….it’s basically another green hill I admit). This acts as a tutorial for the player. The jackal plays similar to Sonic except there is no boosting. He can use the homing attack, however. There are no badniks so this is more of a platforming exercise. The second act is the burning town. You have to dodge falling buildings and reach the goal. After beating the act. A cutscene plays of a blue hedgehog grinning manically and continues destroying the town. The jackal confronts him which leads to a boss level where you battle the hedgehog. After beating him, the hedgehog flees. After the hedgehog leaves, the jackal observes and swears vengeance against the hedgehog. A day later, Eggman appears and offers the jackal a way to have revenge against the hedgehog (who Eggman calls Sonic). The jackal accepts his offer and takes the persona of Infinite. Eggman explains to Infinite this new power being the Phantom Ruby which allows him to knock out anyone with illusions. You then play one act as Infinite. Similar to Shadow the Hedgehog (or at least I think it is, I honestly haven’t played the game), there are three areas in the act divided by checkpoints. Each area has maybe 15 civilians you can knock out with the Phantom Ruby. You will be able to tell how many civilians are in each area by the menu when you want to teleport to certain checkpoints. Sometimes, it may be hard to find these civilians. You can find out where they are by following the screams. That’s the basic gist of it. After that act, you battle Sonic one more time as Infinite which you swiftly defeat. After everyone witnesses Infinite take Sonic, Tails tries to fight Infinite but Infinite quickly takes care of him.
The story then moves to Knuckles on Angel Island guarding the Master Emerald. Knuckles notices a flicky trapped under a rock so he comes to help the flicky out. But as he turns to look back at the Master Emerald, he notices Sonic taking it. He demands Sonic to explain himself but all he does is grin, taunt Knuckles, and quickly leaves. You then play as Knuckles where you have to play two acts of Angel Island zone to find Sonic. Knuckles plays as normal Infinite but removes the homing attack but this time he can glide like in his previous appearances. After finding him, you do another fight against Sonic but as Knuckles. After beating him, Sonic will jump off the island with the Master Emerald but when Knuckles chases him off the island, he sees Sonic is on the Tornado. While Knuckles is gliding beneath Sonic and Tails, he yells at them telling them he will find them. Later in a hidden base, Team G.U.N., the Chaotix (Vector, Espio, and Charmy), and Amy are together trying to come up with a strategy against Eggman. Knuckles then bursts into the base (so much for hidden) and demands where Sonic is. Everyone is then silent which is then disturbed by Amy’s whaling and falling to Knuckles while telling him that Sonic has been taken by Infinite two days ago and they don’t even know if he is still alive. Amy then mentions that Tails has isolated himself in a room since then. Knuckles was shocked to hear all of this. But he then asks if Sonic didn’t do it….then who did? Vector then explains to him about Infinite and his powers. This….ticks off Knuckles. But just as soon as Knuckles was about to unleash his fury, the door opens with Mighty and Ray apologizing for being late. Knuckles is shocked to see Mighty and asks where he has been all of this time. Mighty explains that they’ve been traveling most of the time Ray was distracted by a lot of vacation spots. When Mighty mentions this, the camera shows Ray constantly pestering Mighty about going to certain places or buying a certain thing (one example will be Ray begging to try out that Chocolate Chipped Cream Sundae Supreme in a certain town from a certain game wink). While Knuckles and Mighty are talking, Vector is focusing and then announces he has an idea. They form a team called the Freedom Fighters and there will be four teams. Team G.U.N. will infiltrate Eggman’s bases and gather info. Knuckles and Ray will protect the Flickies and other animal creatures in natural environments from Eggman (Ray is excited while Knuckles reluctantly says “fine.”). Amy and Mighty will lead the humans and anthropomorphic animals to safety. Vector will stop Eggman’s robots while Amy and Mighty do their part. Espio and Charmy will keep an eye on HQ. They agree for the most part but they think Vector might not be able to do it alone. After a bit of arguing, Tails shows up and volunteers to go with Vector. They all agree.
This is where the gameplay splits, in the main hub, you play as Espio where you can explore HQ and do certain stuff like view your collectibles (more on that near the ending of this), play with Charmy in an arcade game, and choose what team you want to play as. So this is basically a Sonic Adventure situation where you select which story you want to play. After beating at least one of the levels in any team, you will unlock Sonic’s story.
I’ll start with Sonic’s story. After getting captured, Sonic meets Eggman who takes him to a torture device that electrocutes him possibly with a device similar to the one at the beginning of Sonic Unleashed. Eggman asks if Sonic enjoys it and Eggman gives Sonic a shock collar. Sonic responds with “Thanks for the gift. Got it in blue?” Eggman chuckles and says that he will make Sonic suffer just as he has made Eggman suffer. Eggman puts Sonic in a virtual simulator where you play in many of Sonic’s previous adventures. Yes, this is basically the nostalgia side of the game. Before I forget, every level in this game will be 3d. The levels Sonic will go through will be two acts from the following games: Sonic 1, 3, Mania, Adventure, Unleashed, and Colors. When playing as Sonic, you will have the homing attack, and boosting (except the boost only activates if you go fast enough, like in the Sonic Advance games so no Wisps!). The twist to these levels is that Sonic will lose rings, not only when he gets hit, but also when he destroys Eggman’s enemies. Y’ see, whenever Sonic destroys one of the badniks, he will be electrocuted. I’m not sure if there should be a limit to how many enemies he can destroy per level (because you can only take enough torture) but I think that may make things a little too difficult. Maybe that could be a difficult mode after beating the game perhaps? After beating the first level, Sonic will be thrown back to his cell and Eggman will give him a chili dog that Sonic eats. Sonic then realizes that it was a little poison that causes him to puke off-screen. Eggman laughs and the cutscene ends. Each level in every story is the span of one month. Each story has 6 levels meaning this torture will last for 6 months….6 MONTHS. After you beat the third level, a cutscene will play of Eggman laughing as he observes Sonic being tortured. Orbot and Cubot observe this while cleaning and Orbot asks Cubot, “Is it just me, or has the doctor gone a little darker recently?” Cubot shrugs and they continue cleaning. After the fifth level, the two robots confront the doctor and suggest that maybe he should take a rest because he has been acting really odd recently. Eggman agrees and mentions that he hasn’t taken into consideration how great the two bots have been. The two bots were shocked but as they were going back to continue their cleaning duties, Eggman calls them back, kneels to their level, puts his arms on the two bots’ arms, and says, “I-” And the robots shut down. “should’ve scrapped you two idiots a long time ago.” After the final level, Sonic is taken by two robots to the roboticizer and that’s the end of Sonic’s story.
Team G.U.N.’s mission is to infiltrate Eggman’s bases, labs, or fortresses and gather info on the enemy. These levels are probably gonna be the longest out of all the stories. They are divided into four parts: Reaching the base, Getting entrance from the base, finding the info, and the boss. When reaching the base, you play as Shadow. I’m gonna get a lot of hate for this now, aren’t I? I think they should bring back the guns. The commander of Team G.U.N. gives Shadow these special weapons that can deactivate Dr. Eggman’s robots. They managed to make these after examining the doctor’s destroyed minions. There are five types of G.U.N.s you can use: the close-range, standard, far-range, standard special, and far-range special (Each weapon has a name that starts with the following letters: M.A.R.I.A.). The close-range is best used when you're close to enemies and is quite effective. Standard is pretty…..standard. Far-range is the weakest of the three but can reach pretty far. The standard special is a stronger version of the standard but it’s ammo is very limited. You can get more ammo via item boxes in the map. The Far-range special is a stronger version of the far-range but it’s ammo is very limited. After getting to the base, you play as Rouge where you have to be stealthy and open the entrance for Shadow. After that, you play as Omega where you (along with Shadow and Rouge) destroy a ton of enemies that surround you. After that, the boss level happens where you play as Shadow without the G.U.N.s. After every level, you will get a cutscene of Shadow’s memory with Maria (this is mainly to show new players what Shadow’s backstory is.). At the final level, you will battle Infinite. Infinite will test you by making you battle a boss you have fought before but with a handicap of some sort. This will happen in all of the other stories except Sonic. I like to call these, the Trials of Infinite. After beating the trial, Infinite will say that they have earned his respect but warns them not to get in his way again. After beating the boss, the team finds out that Sonic is still alive but is being tortured. As Rouge and Omega are talking in the lab, Shadow notices a necklace. He opens it and sees a picture of Maria. As Shadow looks at the picture, he sheds a tear. Rouge notices what Shadow is looking at and reminds him that Maria is never coming back. Shadow says “I know. It’s just been a long time since I have seen her face.”
“We know,” Rouge replies, “We know.”
Rouge hugs Shadow and Omega hugs them both. This is the end of Team G.U.N.’s story.
Amy and Mighty’s story is to reach the goal while saving humans and anthropomorphic animals along the way. Amy plays like Sonic but without boosting, and the homing attack. She can use her hammer to swing around. Mighty can’t do boosting or homing attack but he can crush whatever is beneath him (like Mania). All of the levels will take place in cities, towns, etc. Amy will start off as the physcotic Sonic-obsessed we all know and loathe. However, as Mighty and Amy battle together, Amy starts to act a little more maturely. At some point, she will even change her clothes to something similar to Sonic Boom’s design, maybe add a scabbard or something to hold Amy’s hammer on her back. Mighty will act pretty laid-back while also giving Amy a lesson or two. After the boss with Infinite, one of his trials, Amy learns that Sonic is still alive and is being tortured in a certain base so she sets off. Mighty wishes her luck. This is the end of Amy and Mighty’s story.
Knuckles and Ray’s story is to reach the goal while saving flickles and other animals in natural environments like forests, deserts, ice, etc. Knuckles can glide and punch while Ray can do something very similar to the cape in Super Mario World (like in Mania). Knuckles doesn’t talk much at the beginning but Ray will ramble on….and on…..and on…. Eventually, Knuckles will open up and they’ll start chatting and they’ll talk about their previous adventures. Ray was especially curious about how Knuckles knew Mighty. After surviving the final boss being one of Infinite’s trials, the two walk back to HQ chatting. This is the end of Knuckles and Ray’s story.
Tails and Vector’s story is to reach the goal and defeat Eggman’s massive robots (basically Sonic’s job). Vector can’t do a homing attack or boosting but he can swing his tail. Tails acts similar to Sonic 06 where he can throw bombs and such. Storywise, Tails at first will start to feel very down and not very confident in his abilities considering how quickly Infinite took him down but as he and Vector fight together, Tails becomes more confident. I haven’t thought too much of this part (I just think this may be a funny part), Vector will mention this victory cry that he came up with for the Chaotix which everyone hated. I haven’t thought of what it is but it’s probably something extremely cheesy. After the fifth level, Tails finds out later that Sonic is still alive so he heads to the base where Sonic is being captured. So the final level in Tails and Vector’s story is this level. After the second act, Tails hacks into the cameras and finds out that Sonic is being taken to the roboticizer. Tails proceeds to turn off all the electricity. This gets Infinite’s attention which brings us to the final boss of Tails’ story which is one of Infinite’s trials. After Tails earns Infinite’s respect, he leaves, meets up with Vector, and hopes for the best. This is the end of Tails and Vector’s story.
After you beat all the stories, you will unlock another level in Sonic’s. The cutscene begins with Sonic being taken to the roboticizer but the power goes out. Sonic then escapes which leads you to another level. You won’t get harmed when destroying badniks this time around. However, Sonic will have very quick flashes of his torture every time you destroy one. Sonic also can’t boost. After the first act, Sonic will be surrounded by many badniks but Amy then shows up to save the day. The second act will have Sonic and Amy trying to escape the base. After the second act, giant robots that look like Orbot and Cubot appear. They will say something like “We have realized our true purpose. To destroy you, Sonic the Hedgehog!” Which leads to a boss level against the two. The two finally escape and Sonic faints. Sonic wakes up surrounded by everyone (Team G.U.N., Knuckles, Ray, Amy, Mighty, the Chaotix, and Tails). Once Sonic recovers, you get to play two acts with Sonic to reach Eggman’s fortress (basically the final level). Sonic will finally be able to boost, use the homing attack, and everything else without having to worry about hitting other enemies. As you cross through cities and other environments, you will notice some propaganda posters to join the Freedom Fighters. After the two acts, Sonic will finally face Infinite for the last time. When Infinite and Eggman meet the team of Freedom Fighters, Infinite will announce that he is betraying Eggman and going lone wolf. He explains that after tricking Knuckles he figured out that Eggman was the cause of destroying his entire village. Infinite announces he will purge this world and recreate it as a god! The fight against Infinite begins. You will dodge objects that come flying at you and spikes coming from the ground. Infinite will also seem to almost glitch the game to make the screen upside-down. After beating the boss, Sonic will land a final hit on him which Infinite is about to use a killing move against Sonic….but his powers are disabled. This shocked Infinite and was then knocked out thanks to Sonic’s last hit. Eggman flees. Shadow grabs the Phantom Ruby and says that he will hand this to the Commander. Sonic and the others take Infinite back to HQ and lock him in a cell. Infinite takes some time to think and asks himself what possibly went wrong but he then realizes that Eggman must’ve expected Infinite to backstab him so he deactivated his powers. He tries to convince the Freedom Fighters that something bigger is going on but they ignore him. Why would they believe him anyway? Later, Cream the Rabbit shows up giving Infinite her mother’s baked cookies. Infinite then tells his story to Cream and as he tells her, he feels more and more guilty. He then explains that something bigger is going on and Cream believes him. Of course, no one would believe Cream so she leaves telling Infinite she will be back and once she does, she is with Blaze the Cat. Cream has explained everything to Blaze and Blaze releases Infinite from his cell but warns him that he better not be wrong about this.
So you play two acts to sneak into Eggman’s fortress to see what’s going on. You play as Normal Infinite, Cream, and Blaze. After the two acts, there will be a cutscene of Blaze talking about her home dimension, that she is the princess of her kingdom, and mentions the Sol Emeralds. Infinite asks why she didn’t just bring those with her. She simply responds with “You know exactly why I didn’t bring them.” This shuts up Infinite while Cream shows a bit of confusion. They find out that the Master Emerald is storing energy to be unleashed on the world. They go to Sonic and Blaze explains what Eggman is planning to do. But as soon as they were about to hurry to Eggman’s fortress, Eggman shows up which leads to a battle against Sonic and Eggman. After beating the boss, Eggman does a killing blow on Sonic which shocks everyone. They have finally witnessed Sonic getting killed. Little did the Freedom Fighters know, however, Eggman was using the Phantom Ruby which only knocked out Sonic. Eggman later takes Sonic to the roboticizer. After a bit of recovery, they attempt to go to Eggman’s Fortress again only to meet Eggman again but with Metal Sonic but he looks different. His appearance resembles his design in Issue #39 in the Archie Comics. Eggman tells them that he used the Phantom Ruby to make it look like he killed them. Team G.U.N. was especially confused because they handed it over to the Commander. Shadow’s communications then have the Commander confirm this fact and that he is indeed Dr. Eggman. Tails then fights Metal Sonic to knock some sense into him. So you battle Metal Sonic as Tails. After beating the boss level, Tails will stop fighting and do the classic cheesy “I know somewhere inside you, Sonic is there” line. As he says this line as Metal Sonic charges a huge blast, Metal Sonic stops the charging and approaches Tails. Eggman demands Metal Sonic to kill Tails. Metal Sonic continues walking to Tails and hugs him.
But then Eggman grins.
Metal Sonic blasts Tails’ back which knocks him out. Tails last words before passing out is “I guess Sonic isn’t really in there.” This makes everyone think that it was all a bluff and that Sonic really did get killed. Blaze becomes very furious and fights Metal Sonic. After beating Metal Sonic as Blaze, Metal Sonic breaks and Eggman says “Congratulations! You killed Metal Sonic and as a result….” the metal sheds and reveals Sonic. Everyone is shocked, especially Blaze once she recovers from her fury. Eggman leaves while saying “Enjoy your new corpse!” Blaze kneels looking at Sonic and all she says is “I killed Sonic…” As everyone looks at the dead hedgehog, Knuckles asks Infinite and Cream if the Master Emerald really is in Eggman’s Fortress. They say yes and Knuckles says that they can revive Sonic using the Master Emerald with Chaos Control. Shadow then says that even without his Inhibitor Rings, he still won’t be able to pull that move alone. Knuckles then says “You hedgehogs aren’t the only ones able to use Chaos Control.” You then play as Shadow and Knuckles in the Fortress. After the two acts, Shadow asks Knuckles when he learned how to use Chaos Control. Knuckles explains that he has been guarding the Master Emerald since he was born. He learned it eventually. He must have the Master Emerald in order to use it however hence why you never see him ever use it. After beating the boss, the two return back to Sonic’s corpse with the Master Emerald. Shadow takes off his Inhibitor Rings and Shadow and Knuckles perform Chaos Control. After Sonic is revived, Knuckles and Shadow faint and Blaze hugs Sonic and apologizes for killing him. Sonic is a little confused but catches up pretty quickly. Sonic then notices Infinite and Infinite asks what they are gonna do now. Sonic simply says “What we always do, stop Eggman’s plan.”
After everyone recovers, the final (this time for real) attack on Eggman begins. You will play as Blaze/Infinite, Shadow, Tails, and Sonic. Each one of them will have one act and one boss. Blaze and Infinite will battle Super Mecha Sonic (Infinite will battle the first half while Blaze battles the second because she is quite hesitant after what happened last time). Shadow will battle himself (When Shadow sees this, he says “I found you, faker.”). Tails will fight Zavok. And Sonic will fight the Super Eggrobo Z. After everyone beats their bosses, they will meet up and the background changes to a flooded city with Perfect Chaos. Knuckles shows up and lets Sonic use the Master Emerald to transform into Super Sonic to defeat Perfect Chaos. After beating Perfect Chaos, Perfect Dark Gaia appears. Blaze, Infinite, Shadow, and Tails use the Master Emerald as well. Blaze turns into Burning Blaze, Infinite turns to Infinity, Shadow turns to Super Shadow, Tails turns into Super Tails, and Knuckles turns to Hyper Knuckles. Like Unleashed, Super Sonic and company have to destroy the snake heads to destroy the forcefield. Afterwards, each of them will land a hit on Gaia’s eyes and they do one final attack on him. After beating it, the Phantom Ruby machine Dr. Eggman was using overloads and everyone goes back to their normal form. Infinite finds the Phantom Ruby, looks at it, and breaks it. They throw Eggman in a cell and as Eggman is sitting there, he notices Orbot and Cubot who greet him. Eggman is shocked and demands why they are here and Tails mentions that he fixed them so they are back to normal. The two robots start talking and talking and Eggman yells “NOOOOO!” Afterwards, the Freedom Fighters say their farewells. Knuckles tells Ray that he is always welcome to Angel Island and he will give him a personal tour later. Knuckles uses the Master Emerald to create a portal to Angel Island. As Blaze was saying her farewells to everyone and Cream, Infinite was about to leave. Blaze notices and asks where Infinite is going. Infinite responds that he has caused enough trouble and he doesn’t belong here. Blaze and Infinite discuss something which gets Cream curious. Blaze announces that Infinite is coming with her to her dimension. Cream says goodbye to Infinite and hopes to see him soon. Blaze opens a portal to her dimension and says to Infinite, “Shall we?” Infinite responds with “Yes, your majesty.” Amy and Mighty do some talking and Tails goes to Vector, and says the beginning of the victory chant. Vector notices and says the ending along with him. The rest of the Chaotix cringe but Ray cheers. And that…..is the end of Sonic Forces story.
You thought I was done talking about this game? No no, don’t go crumbling this piece of paper just yet. I’ve still got a few things to talk about. After beating the game, you will unlock Infinite’s story which you can as OP Infinite. The first level is Angel Island. After beating the level, a cutscene will appear showing Knuckles yelling at nothing which Infinite says “Interesting, he fell for it so easily.” I don’t have many ideas about the story or gameplay for this one. But I do know that after beating the final level, Normal Infinite will wake up like from a nightmare and goes outside and views a quiet kingdom. He slowly breathes and comforts himself by saying that it was just a dream. He then goes back inside and sleeps.
One minor detail, in the hub where you play as Espio, I’m thinking one game you play with Charmy is something similar to Sonic Spinball.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about collectibles. Each act will have 5 red rings. The two exceptions are Knuckles and Ray’s story as well as Amy and Mighty’s where there are five flickies and five citizens in each act. You will also get red rings depending on the ranks you get for defeating bosses (there is no rank system for acts, only bosses). When collecting these red rings/flickies/citizens, you will unlock costumes.
For Knuckles, you will unlock his Sonic Boom version (Not sure with this one due to how tall he is), Mecha Knuckles form the Mecha Madness Archie Comic, Sinbad, Sir Gawain, Classic Knuckles (if there is any difference), and Sonic OVA Knuckles. For Ray, you will get his Archie costume, and a Super Monkey Ball costume. If you collect all of the flickies in the Knuckles and Ray’s story, you will unlock Hyper Knuckles.
For Amy, you will be able to get her Sonic Boom version, Sonic CD, Nimue (Not entirely sure on this one since she doesn’t seem the most suited for combat), Sonic Riders, a costume based off of Arle Nadja from Puyo Puyo, and a costume from the Olympic Games (Specifically 2010). Mighty will get a costume based off of Joker from P5 and his Archie Comic design.
Shadow can get his Boom design, Sir Lancelot, a costume based on Shenmue, and Riders. Rouge will have her olympic design, and a costume based on Bayonetta. Gamma….well he can use some skins from the E-Series in Sonic Adventure. Once you collect all of the red rings in Team G.U.N.’s story, you will unlock Super Shadow. Super Shadow is interesting where you don’t even use guns when you’re in this mode, you can just blast through enemies.
For Tails, you can get his robot version from Lost Word, Sonic Boom, Ali Baba, Blacksmith, Classic Tails (not sure if he will be too small to work but eh), and a costume based off of Samba De Amigo. Vector can get his Knuckles’ Chaotix version and his Dark Mobius version from Sonic Universe #25. After collecting all of the red rings in his story, you can unlock Super Tails.
Sonic can unlock Darkspine Sonic, Werehog (just a skin, you probably won’t need to change his size), Classic Sonic (Size may be an issue for this one), Link Sonic (Nintendo Exclusive), a costume based off of Jet Set Radio, Sonic Boom, Riders, Mecha Sonic (Sonic 2), Mecha Sonic (3), Metal Sonic (CD), and the Mecha Sonic in Forces story. After you collect 95% of Sonic’s red rings, you will unlock Super Sonic. 100% unlocks a costume for Super Sonic being Fleetway Sonic.
If you 100% complete the game, you will unlock Hyper Sonic and a level just for him.
You’re….you’re still here? Huh, good job! Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if you have any thoughts on it.
You can crumble this paper now if you did print this. -
RE: How I Would've Made Sonic Forces
NeoMetallix > 06-14-2020, 04:35 PM
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RE: How I Would've Made Sonic Forces
Infinite > 06-14-2020, 08:03 PM
Boom! Fixed! -
RE: How I Would've Made Sonic Forces
SCS > 09-12-2020, 01:59 AM
@
(Note: In this post I will focus more on feedback for the underlying ideas of your Sonic Forces Rewritten project, as opposed to feedback on the writing component. I provided feedback on the writing component in this associated thread.)
I really love a lot of your ideas here! You have a lot of really creative and interesting ideas that would have definitely made Sonic Forces a much more expansive and fulfilling game to play than what it ended up being.
I really love the idea of building it out as a much more Sonic Adventure style game with multiple concurrent (or in some cases asynchronous) storylines that you play separately, each with one or more playable characters. I also really love the idea of making the Resistance HQ a playable hubworld with exploration, arcade games and other fun activities, including a Sonic Spinball style game!
I love the high quantity of playable characters as well as the large quantity of characters involved in the story. I feel this is quintessential to an ideal Sonic game, and I'm very happy to see that emphasized in this project.
Gameplay-wise, I think you have great ideas for how the characters would play and how the levels would be organized. I'm personally a fan of including highly divergent gameplay styles such as the treasure hunting and mech shooting in Sonic Adventure 2, so it would be really cool to see even more gameplay styles represented across the different character stories. I actually really like the idea of Shadow using guns again, as long as it's not too graphic/realistic. I feel that it fits his and Team Dark's role of infiltrating Eggman's bases: he needs to be able to take care of large volumes of enemies very quickly. I also really love the detail of how Super Shadow does not need to use guns due to his high-powered/super-speed nature greatly exceeding even that of Shadow's normal extreme speed and high strength.
I especially love the idea of the Ray and Knuckles story and gameplay, with the fun dialogue between them and the gameplay of protecting a variety of natural locations from Eggman's robots. I always dearly love beautiful locations in Sonic games: technological bases and such are always really cool, but it's an extra special joy to see a variety of beautiful natural locations in Sonic games, such as in Sonic 06 among many other examples. The Ray and Knuckles story is a really great way to add a variety of natural locations to balance out the Eggman base and virtual reality locations.
I think a lot of the ideas you have around the Phantom Ruby / its illusion/VR capabilities are extremely interesting. I was fascinated by the idea of starting out the game with playing as Infinite, and seeing a fake Sonic destroying his village, thereby providing much greater substance and explanation for why he was the way he was and why he did what he did, including working for Eggman and his many acts of violence. I do think that some of the gameplay ideas around Infinite get too dark, such as killing innocent civilians at the start of the game. From my knowledge, this kind of gameplay is extremely rare, even in extremely violent and dark M-rated video games. In fact, this is the primary reason why a game I will not name here was rated AO: it had extremely realistic and violent themes centered around an in-game necessity of violence against innocent and defenseless people, which caused the ESRB to raise the rating from M to AO. I feel like it would be preferable to keep Infinite's acts of violence against innocent people heavily implied in cutscenes, without ever being explicitly depicted, and without being interactive or an element of the gameplay at all. Moving on from that point though, I really, really love the idea of Infinite using his illusion powers to recreate old bosses from previous Sonic games for the player to face again: this and the other nostalgic aspects are really awesome ideas!
While I definitely appreciate wanting to make Sonic's capture and subsequent events more substantial and meaningful than what we got in the actual game, I feel like some of the themes here got a bit too dark for my personal tastes. (Of course this is your fanfiction and you're more than welcome to write it however you see fit, just sharing my personal opinions on the subject). I was never a fan of the idea of Sonic being tortured: I feel it is out of character for Eggman to do something that heinous, and just overall an inappropriate theme for a family friendly series. I would be much more accepting of the torture concept if the game had explicitly depicted Eggman as being heavily corrupted by the Phantom Ruby and essentially out of his mind, which is something I've always headcanoned about the game but as far as I'm aware was never an officially-depicted concept. Or, to have a new/different villain far more evil and dangerous than Eggman responsible for it. Even still, I feel like torture is a very dark subject and not one that should be in an E10 game. I actually am pretty open to the idea of a T rated Sonic game if done with substance and tact, and if Sonic Forces had been rated T I would also be much more accepting of the inclusion of torture themes if it had been handled with far greater substance and tact. Regarding your ideas, I feel like the shock collar idea could potentially be used to a much more minimal extent (or, its extended usage could be implied or referenced, but not ever depicted or a part of the gameplay). Having it be an extended part of the gameplay and experiencing the shocks Sonic suffers as gameplay interruptions is pretty intense. Furthermore, the poisoned chili-dog that causes Sonic to vomit off-screen is also too dark IMO, as are the themes surrounding Sonic suffering flashbacks from likely PTSD in the future after being rescued when encountering badniks.
I really love your ideas about Cream and Cheese bringing cookies to Infinite!
I always love stuff like that. I also really love Blaze the Cat, and seeing her having heavy involvement in the story is fantastic. I really love your ideas regarding how Infinite has a change of heart and betrays Eggman, but the Resistance don't listen to him when he tries to tell of the bigger issues at hand: but Cream believes him, and she explains everything to Blaze who also believes him, and then Blaze is willing to give Infinite a chance and help him out. I think this is an absolutely fantastic idea, and does an amazing job of representing Cream's precious childlike wisdom, and Blaze's precious wisdom and maturity as a character, her forgiveness and her willingness to give even a supervillain a second chance if she believes he deserves it. I love how, after the Resistance / Freedom Fighters won Infinite was starting to walk away, but then had a talk with Blaze and decided to join her in her world. I love the idea of Blaze essentially taking Infinite under her wing to help him heal and grow. Not only would that provide tremendous character development opportunity for Infinite, but for Blaze as well by giving her an opportunity to have a key leadership role that greatly and personally influences another character. I definitely see a great potential for many stories to be written about this and I would love to see any stories you write expanding on the Blaze and Infinite story if you choose to do so (as well as anything else you write and want to share with all of us!)
I love your ideas regarding collectibles, costumes and other unlockables as well. I really love the idea of being able to play levels from old Sonic games throughout the game at key moments. Although I am curious, why did you decide to have the bosses ranked but not the levels? I think that's a very interesting idea, personally I would prefer to see every level ranked (including but not limited to bosses) but am very curious to know your reasoning behind it.
Lastly I want to especially emphasize how much I love your ideas for character interaction across the various stories. The dynamic between Knuckles and Ray is absolutely fantastic, I love the idea of Ray just talking and talking until Knuckles breaks down and opens up more, leading to a great friendship between the two. I love the ending of Ray always being welcome on Angel Island, and Knuckles promising him a free tour. I really love the precious moment between Shadow, Rouge and Omega when Shadow sees the picture of Maria, and the conversation they have about that and the hug they share. It reminds me of one of my favorite cutscenes from Sonic 06. The only idea out of these that I don't personally agree with is having Amy change into a more Sonic Boom-style Amy, as I actually personally love the older depictions of Amy in media such as Sonic Adventure, Sonic Unleashed and Sonic X, including her cute pining for Sonic. I absolutely do agree with giving her more character development and much more serious and substantial roles in the story, and as a playable character, I would just personally do it differently: keeping her youthful and energetic nature and heart full of love and adoration for Sonic, but still maturing her emotionally in other key ways such as by showing her strength, independence and resolve, and giving her essential leadership and other key roles in the story, and making her a playable character. Official Sonic media that comes the closest to what I'm thinking of would probably be Sonic Unleashed, Sonic 06 and the IDW Sonic comics, but there are still various aspects of all of those I would change and progress further.
In conclusion, I really love reading your fanfictions and fanfiction ideas/plans/outlines: I really enjoy it and have a lot of fun reading them, thinking and posting about it. I just want to emphasize that on anything I disagree with, it's not a criticism in any way and I fully respect and support your right to write your fanfiction as you want to write it. I'm just sharing my personal opinions on everything, whether it's something I agree with or something I disagree with. Thank you so much for sharing this with all of us at Sonic Blast, and I very much look forward to reading and providing feedback on any future stories you wish to share! I know you mentioned wanting to play Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog before continuing your fanfiction so you have more knowledge of the source material for Team Dark, which I definitely think is a good idea as it's just always good to have as deep a knowledge of the source material as possible when writing fanfictions for it. I hope you can play them soon in the near future though as I'm definitely very much looking forward to Chapter 2!
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RE: How I Would've Made Sonic Forces
Infinite > 09-13-2020, 09:44 AM
Thanks for the advice! Before I get to talking about the dark themes, I want to briefly talk about your Eggman critiscm. I get that the torture is a bit inappropriate for a family-friendly franchise but I don't see how it is out of character for the evil doctor. Eggman has been beaten over and over again by Sonic and even Classic Eggman notices that he is a little bit nuts (he is a mad scientist after all). I can see him returning every humiliation and defeat a thousandfold.That being said, onto the subject of the dark themes I put in beginning with Infinite's gameplay.
Now I could omit the following screams mechanic and remove the spikes coming from the ground attack and just stick with red cubes but I don't really want to remove his gameplay entirely because as mentioned I plan on having an entire story for Infinite unlocked after beating the game to cover up some questions that might be raised during the main story. Now the poisoned Chili Dog I can remove because I have a much better idea. A few days ago I realized that I could instead introduce a certain robot who will pull pranks on Sonic while he is imprisoned. This character happens to be Bokkun. So instead of having the chili dog being poisoned, it will probably just explode right in front of his face and the robot will laugh at him. The PTSD I can also omit BUT I do plan on Sonic having a slight distaste for Chili dogs once he is rescued but in the game afterwards he starts to warm back to it starting with hot dogs.
Amy I'm honestly not sure what she'll end up at the end of this story. She's someone I'll deal with when I get there but I will note your critiscm when I get there.
Now the omission of the ranking system was an idea I got from a three-episode Sonic critique series by ShayMay called Sonic Spitball (great series, highly recommend it when you have the time) who said this, "The player shouldn't be graded on their performance as this stipulates in the way that they play. Players are less likely to muck about if they know the game is going to give them a bad for doing so. No one wants to be told they're crap after beating a level." Basically, the ranking system discourages exploration and experimentation in levels. Bosses are fine with the ranking system because there is nowhere to really explore or experiment. ShayMay also suggested challenge modes like Time Trials to use the ranking system because exploration isn't the main focus in challenges.
All that being said, a few updates I want to mention. With Shadow's gameplay, I plan on removing the guns because, as much as I would like to keep them, it doesn't make sense for him to have them because how come Sonic can dispatch many enemies by simply homing attack them while Shadow needs a weapon to do the same job. Next is Tails role in the game, he isn't going to be teaming up with Vector. I couldn't come up with a good excuse as to why the Chaotix would be separated so I came up with an even better solution. Tails is devasted by Sonic's "death" so he isolates himself in his house and decides to make an Iron-Man-like suit for himself and goes by the name Dark Oak. As Dark Oak, he is very ruthless and shows no mercy. There is going to this one part where he manages to grab Infinite and tries to kill him but is interrupted by Mighty and Amy. I'm thinking of having this fake ending that plays if you beat the final boss wearing the Fleetway Super Sonic costume but it's....a bit dark (it's Fleetway Super Sonic what do you expect). Last thing I want to mention is, after the end credits, the game will show a computer in one of Eggman's bases saying "Uploading....98%.....99%....100%. Virus uploading complete." This will lead to a spin-off which takes place right after Forces where you play exclusively as Tails.
