Is anyone else excited for Sonic Forces and Sonic Mania?

I'm already a big Sonic fan so I have high hopes for it. I'm linking what I'm seeing so far! I can't post links yet since I don't have 25 posts yet, but they just released one of the tracks for Sonic Forces and its sounds good!

@smooth4lyfe: Mania? Absolutely. I'm not even what you'd call a big Sonic the Hedgehog fan but the original game, Sonic and Knuckles are some of the best 2D platforming experiences I've had. From what I know SM is handled by a passionate team that has decent credibility from making the great Sonic mobile ports, so I'm very excited.

Overall however I feel Sonic (franchise) deserves the hate it gets, the Sonic Team got really lazy/ bad/ or lost talent and it reflected the IP. I haven't enjoyed a Sonic Team game since the Nights remake on PS2 which was heavily outsourced. ST made some awful games that only a purist would defend.

So to answer the latter? No, Sonic Forces is handled by the actual Sonic Team (eww) and I don't trust them to make a fun game anymore. If I wanted to play a 3D platformer? I feel I have better options.

For 2D, Mania is looking very promising.

HYPE

@RSM-HQ: Whaaat....I do agree though that the everything from Sonic Adventure 2 and above was a downhill spiral for Sonic with the exception of Sonic Generations and Sonic Unleashed. I think they didn't know the type of games their fans would want so they tried a variety of different play styles which has failed them. However, Sonic Forces does look promising as it seems to be going back to its Sonic Adventure roots, but also keeping in the 2D aspect from Generations. Its like the best of all worlds. And the actual Sonic Team (that did Sonic Adventure series) was good! It fell off when Yuji Naka and some other members decided to put it in the hands of someone else I think. With forces though, they are back and I have hope man.

Sure, mate. I'm always game for a proper 2D Sonic game and a sequel to Sonic Generations.

@madrocketeer: For sure, but it's not a sequel to Generations though, its a completely new game...it just happens to include Classic Sonic

@smooth4lyfe: I'm not stating the quality of all games after Sonic and Knuckles are terrible, I don't believe in 10/10 or 0/10, but the quality varied from o'k to bad.

I truly believe Sonic Team tried with the original Nights into Dreams, I love that game, and at that time Team Sonic was still making o'k Sonic games, though personally didn't like the controls. I can accept reasonably good games to gauge excitement, however can't say my time with Unleashed was a joy and never played Generations because at that point I already completely gave up on the developer. I read that it's o'k though_

@RSM-HQ: Yeah Nights was a pretty awesome game. I still have my grips about the current Sonic games but they seem to be getting better. Give Sonic Forces a chance atleast I think it will be an big improvement. Now you can create a custom character which is pretty cool

@smooth4lyfe: Hmm, your excitement for Forces does have me intrigued, I'll keep an eye on the game. But can't promise I'll share your excitement.

For Mania however I will be getting that day one, I love 2D platformers, and so long it's similar quality to Freedom Planet I will be happy. But I'm hoping it'll be even more amazing.

I looooove Sonic games and the only Sonic game I'm looking forward to is just Sonic Mania alone. Not really interested Sonic Forces however but that might change when I see more gameplay later on.

I loved Sonic Adventure 2 on Dreamcast (and now XBA) but wasn't really crazy all for the first Sonic Adventure game but still okay.

Sonic Heroes was where it took a nose dive. It was just boring. After that, they kept pushing new characters with shitty controls and to many glitches. Sonic Adventure 2 had more characters to play as but Shadow was pretty much Sonic, Tails and Robotnik were the same but they didn't feel like shit when playing them and might I say... fun. Knuckles and Rouge were annoying but I was able to get through them pretty quick.

I also noticed after 06, there was an abundance of people who proclaimed they never liked Sonic or that every game after Sonic and Knuckles sucks. 06 must have pissed enough people off for them to retroactively hate the Sonic games. I think the Adventure games haven't aged that great but they can still be pretty fun and they were good games back then.

This is just my opinion but I think the big thing is that Sega wanted to really differentiate Sonic from Mario around the Dreamcast/Nintendo 64 era. Rather than go from 2D to 3D with the same gameplay, which is (debatable) what Mario 64 did. They thought they could add more by putting in voice acting, setting it in the real world, and trying to give it a "deeper" plot than Mario. Which as time has shown just failed. The other big problem is the "Massive Speed" feeling that the 2D games created is just really really hard to convert to 3D without basically taking control away from the player. Since Mario never had to deal with that expectation, it easily succeeded at going from 2D to 3D.

@davillain-: I never disliked the Adventure games, I just didn't think they're great either, the controls never felt right to me, and level design was much to be desired, but thought it was a good concept that just needed ironing out.

However some 19 years/ and countless sequels later I don't think it made anything better, the sequel to Adventure for many is worse (myself included), Sonic Unleash and Heroes are nothing worth mentioning in my opinion. And if I dig deeper it only gets worse_

I dunno, for me after Adventure Team Sonic just stopped caring, many say they wanted to stop making Sonic games and make Nights the new mascot for SEGA. Just as Sonic replaced Alex. But Nights into Dreams just didn't sell enough to convince SEGA it was a good idea. Who knows really; other than SEGA and Sonic Team.

As far as the 3D games are concerned Nights is a far better game than anything Sonic has done in 3D. The gameplay is just so smooth in comparison. Made even better with the Nights Remake, the sequel on Wii however is one of the worst sequels I can name. At that point I already started disliking Sonic Team anyhow, they only showed me they could somehow disappoint me even further.

I understand why people like Sonic however, its platforming has always been unique.

Perhaps Sonic IP isn't the problem though, it's these developers SEGA approves for making god-awful 3D games. Sonic Team should be let go honestly if they fail this time around, and for Big Red Button I hope they already got let go_

*I don't like saying people should be fired but who is really hiring these people to make games? If SEGA wants to survive they need to start making better decisions. They can't live off Crypton Future Media forever.

Yeah I agree with them putting all these random characters that didn't need to be there! I personally dislike Silver I thought he was a useless character.

Sonic 06 was the biggest downfall in Sonic history that game was horrid too many glitches, introduction of useless Silver, boring gameplay, etc.

I do agree I think SEGA wants to Sonic to stand out and not be a copy cat. They need to stop adding all these random characters and keep it basic, Act 1-3 stages and boss fights, like how Sonic Adventure series was. I do think Forces will be good though

Yeah I'm definitely excited for Mania!

For Sonic Mania, I am. I have the collector's edition preordered for the Switch.

@smooth4lyfe: Definitely looking forward to Mania. I've had the collector's edition for PC preordered since some time last year because the game looks great and that bundle is just sharp. I'm firmly on the fence about Forces. It's either going to decent at best or just another failed attempt to make Sonic edgy and different and thus a continuation of Sega's determination to miss the point as hard as they can. I'm content to wait and see on Forces.

Mania looks great, not sure about the 3d game.

While I enjoyed what I played of Sonic Adventure, and somewhat enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, I think the 3D Sonic games have largely been too different from the 2D ones. I'm not really interested in Sonic Forces, but I hope it turns out well anyway.

Sonic Mania, it is actually looking interesting. Maybe there are some people in the ROM community that are quite talented, and can make their mark on the industry with the skills they've developed.

Mania, yeah! That other one, meh...