Quote: BifrostI was meaning exactly the pretentious seriousness from S06 tho. It's entirely possible it's just a good regular serious story, but that whole trailer gave me bad vibes. The other Infinite trailer where they embraced how ridiculously edgy he looks, without pointing it out, felt a lot more genuine.
'06 was pretentious and weird because the plot itself was overly convoluted and focused more on the original human characters than the actual Sonic characters for a good chunk of it. Hell, one thing '06 messes up is that it doesn't have a clearly defined premise - there is way too much different stuff going on that all gets lazily connected by the end. Like I couldn't easily sum up what Sonic '06 is about in one or two sentences. Plus it had the SonicxElise thing that generated some of the worst "inspirational quotes" that have ever come from Sonic ("IF YOU'VE GOT TIME TO WORRY, THEN RUN, RIGHT?"). The game also lacked any semblance of attitude, Sonic himself was a cardboard box and there was just no charm because the game took itself 100% seriously. Even the facial animation was very muted.
Forces isn't looking like it has a pretentious, over-convoluted plot. It's premise is simple and can be summed up in two sentences - "99% of the world has been claimed by Dr. Eggman, with help from a mysterious new villain and old foes and rivals from Sonic's past. Join the fight as your own original avatar and help Sonic reclaim the world's freedom as part of the Resistance!". And we still see that, so far, the various Sonic characters have actual personality like they should. Sonic's still cocky, supportive, and level-headed despite the dire situation, Knuckles is being given a "macho army leader" role that kinda fits his character, giving him just the right combination of seriousness and goofiness. Classic Sonic is the same mute n' cute pantomime character like in Generations. Silver is the young, enthusiastic optimist by the looks of it. We haven't seen much of the other characters but so far the characters seem to be acting like how they should be. Also, the robot designs are still on the more cartoony side, even using classic era badniks, as opposed to Sonic '06 wannabe-Gundams and lava monsters.
I'm fairly certain the "war" theme itself was chosen specifically because of the Avatar, and not to be edgy - it's the only way you can naturally integrate an avatar character without it feeling like forced fanfiction. It's kinda ironic - Infinite represents what you would expect a typical Sonic OC made by a 12 year old to be (edgy, overdesigned, made in a lab by Eggman, unrealistically and over the top powerful with a wide range of abilities with no connecting theme to them, "faster and stronger than Sonic", and *teleports behind you*™). By contrast, the actual player avatar is just a guy/gal who decided to join this Resistance because they probably had nothing better to do anyway since the world is kinda screwed, and they have no amazing powers or anything, they use gadgets instead (which we'll probably find out are made by Tails or made from Eggman robot scraps). Most games from a licensed franchise that give you an OC creator have a bad habit of making the OC overshadow the iconic characters, and Sonic Forces seems to be avoiding that pretty well through it's premise alone.
The game seems most comparable to Unleashed, in that at it's core, it's got serious, over-the-top stakes, but the characters themselves still have levity and personality that makes things feel less pretentious and more genuine. And even the music is like cheesy anime music.