Sonic Forces is really disappointing. It's a pretty anti-climactic way to end this retrospective. It really bums me out that this game came out the way it did.

Sonic Forces was one of the most anticipated Sonic games I could remember. It was announced with one of the coolest Sonic trailers and looked like Sonic was finally back as a true force to the gaming industry. Instead, he's still a laughing stock.

A few months before Sonic Forces released, Sonic Mania came out. Seen as one of the greatest Sonic games in years. And I agree. It's incredible. However, the end of the game left a lot of questions. Where did Classic Sonic go? Where is he heading to? We got those answered in Sonic Forces. Sonic Forces had a pretty neat concept. It was promoted to be a very strong story like the games of old. A story where Dr. Eggman actually wins. And a small resistance is made to take back the world. It's like a war story. But this is where the first problem starts. For the past few years, Sonic games became less serious and more child-oriented. Which makes this game a tonally broken game. It's trying to be this dark and dramatic story filled with consequence and sacrifice. Yet the characters are cracking jokes and acting like nothing matters. The game is filled with a lot of continuity errors. Why did Classic Sonic even show up? Dimension Manipulation? This was never established. The Phantom Ruby reacts to those with courage and goodwill? Then why can the main villain use it? Why is Silver here? I thought Sonic '06 ended with time resetting... Why does he know Sonic then? The game doesn't explain anything

And Eggman winning isn't impactful at all because it's explained in a text screen... You don't get to see Eggman's conquest. All the characters tell you what happens instead of showing you and the writing and acting are pretty bad. The main villain is awful too. This game introduces Infinite the Jackal. He looks cool, sure. But his motivation is awful. He's evil only because Shadow made him scared and he was all like "I'm not weak, Ima be evil so I can show people I'm not weak"... What? That's pathetic. The Phantom Ruby is also stupid because they never explain how he was chosen to wield it. Just cause?

Anyways, this game does have something the previous games don't... You can make your own.. Sonic OC. Your OC is a character you make that joins the resistance. They are dubbed as "Rookie" and it's actually pretty neat. You can choose between species like Dog, Wolf, Cat, Bunny, Bear, Bird, or Hedgehog. All of which have unique abilities. Your OC has a grapple gun and a Wispon (A gun basically) that ranges in abilities. Unfortunately, they can become overpowered which makes an already easy game, too easy. The other playable character is Classic Sonic (Who has a Super Form with DLC). He is awful. The engine they used just doesn't work. He's so stiff and controls horribly. What happened to Sonic Generations where he felt amazing. He's a clunky mess. The final playable character is Modern Sonic (As well as Shadow and Super Sonic with DLC). He plays... Fine... I actually like how the engine allows you to boost past sections in levels. The problem is that this can also lead to a lot of unfair deaths. There are also sections where you play as both Modern Sonic and the OC. This has the feature known as "Double Boost". A scripted moment where the main theme blasts in the background. Overall the gameplay isn't bad... It's just uninspired and clunky.

The worst part besides some of the gameplay is the bosses. The boss selection is awful. You don't get to fight Chaos or Shadow... Nope, it's a cutscene. Instead, you fight Eggman twice, Infinite three times, and Zavok and Metal Sonic. They are all too easy and just underwhelming. With the exception of the final boss. It's amazing. It was the best part of the game. The big issue with this game was that it was rushed. The game didn't have enough time and therefore it is just underwhelming. Doesn't help that this game is extremely short. You can beat it in 2-3 hours... Why?

The game does have good stuff. As I said, the final boss is pretty good. The game looks pretty good. The lighting and animations are pretty crisp. And the music is really good. A lot of it is vocal songs and I really liked them. Especially the main theme "Fist Bump". Great song.

Sonic Forces is yet another example of SEGA half-assing and playing it too safe. I really hope Sonic can bounce back again. I really hope that we do. This is the final game in my Sonic The Hedgehog Retrospective. 21 Games. Was an absolute blast. Just wish it ended with a bang.

2/5

Wouldn't Recommend

Like a lot of fans, I'm a 90s kid with a ton of nostalgia for the blue blur. So much so, I've given a lot of mediocre Sonic titles a shot when they've inevitably gone on sale for a fraction of their MSRP. At the very least, there's usually a polished Green Hill-esque level or two before my nostalgia meter runs out and I move on.

When I got this game as part of a recent Humble Bundle, I expected it to be the same. Its Metacritic score is way lower than my least favorite modern Sonic game, and just a little below the most recent franchise entry I abandoned.

So imagine my surprise when I had a ball playing it all the way through.

Before I continue, I'll summarize who the game definitely isn't for:

• If you've played any other mixed-to-well-reviewed 3D Sonic game and didn't really like it, Sonic Forces will not change your mind. This is not the entry that brings Nintendo polish to the franchise, it's not a paradigm shift for the series, it doesn't forego the butt-rock theme song, it's still caught in that Dragon Ball Z loop where they have to out-Shadow themselves every other game.
• If you're thinking of paying the full retail price, you will probably be disappointed. The game takes 3 to 5 hours to beat, and is a poorer value than Sonic Mania.
• If you're a Sonic master and you're hungry for a new challenge, this isn't it. It's the easiest Sonic game I've played.

But for me... a fan of 3D Sonic, someone who bought the game for a fraction of its asking price, and someone who plays games primarily to relax and unwind... Sonic Forces does a lot of things right:

• Each level is about 2 - 4 minutes long. This has been criticized a lot, but I kind of love that none of the levels overstay their welcome. You get a "quick hit" of Sonic.
• I've heard people critique the lack of meaningful differences between the three playable characters, but after years of having Big the Cats and were-hogs shoehorned into Sonic games, I appreciate that this game feels like playing three subtly different versions of the same character. Every level feels like a Sonic level.
• The game features plenty of the series' much-maligned "on rails" sections, where holding boost and forward pretty much guarantees a win... but these set pieces and one-off spectacles are fun to watch, like riding a roller coaster. Several made me chuckle.
• The customizable Avatar character is mostly a cosmetic gimmick, but the gear you earn for completing and ranking in levels is apparently what my brain needed to actually care about an "S" rank.
• Modern Sonic games are notorious for feeling less and less quality-controlled as the games progress (Lost World was particularly bad for me in this regard). Even Sonic Generations' final boss is notoriously irritating. While Sonic Forces never reaches the heights of Generations, it also never drops off in quality or consistency while playing. It's imperfect, but evenly so.

Does my nostalgia mean I'm grading on a curve? Yes, definitely. But I really did go into Sonic Forces expecting to dislike and abandon it partway through, and that didn't happen at all. It's worse than Sonic Mania, but better than some of its more well-regarded predecessors.

In the end I think I enjoyed Sonic Forces overall. For anyone watching, It is true that I did complain about the game when I hit about two-thirds of the way in. And the problems I complained about are still very real. But the last few levels redeemed the game a bit, and I quite enjoyed the final boss. I would have liked more of the boss fights to be as enjoyable as the final one, while I simultaneously might have liked additional attack waves and increased complexity from that final boss. But I could handle a Sonic game that had more fun fights like that.

Sonic Forces does have problems, it's not a perfect game. But I did have fun. Full disclosure, this is the first Sonic game I have played from start to finish. As I have mentioned in past, I am not a Sonic fan. I have enjoyed a romp in Sonic 1 & 2 now and then, playing a few levels before moving on. But the game never really gripped me. I was also a stubborn eleven-year-old who thought Super Mario World > Sonic. Thankfully I eventually grew out of that awkward phase of life and accepted the myriad of great games on a variety of platforms. Unfortunately for me, the golden age of Sonic had long passed me by. So I find myself getting to really know Sonic for the first time in my old age.

Why Sonic Forces and not some other, supposedly better, Sonic installment? Well we can all thank @tylerisrandom for that. More specifically, his review of the game. Did he promise someone like me would like it? No, not in the least. In fact he said:

If you've played any other mixed-to-well-reviewed 3D Sonic game and didn't really like it, Sonic Forces will not change your mind. This is not the entry that brings Nintendo polish to the franchise, it's not a paradigm shift for the series, it doesn't forego the butt-rock theme song, it's still caught in that Dragon Ball Z loop where they have to out-Shadow themselves every other game.

I have dipped my toe into the 3D Sonic world, and I haven't really liked what I've encountered there (now to be fair, outside of Super Mario 3D World I am not particularly a fan of 3D Mario either even despite the fact that Galaxy gave us the best Mario franchise character to date). Given Tyler's warning and my misgivings about 3D Sonic, this should have warned me off.

But he also said:

Each level is about 2 - 4 minutes long. This has been criticized a lot, but I kind of love that none of the levels overstay their welcome. You get a "quick hit" of Sonic.

I like the idea of bite-size Sonic that I can pick up anywhere via my Switch. One reason I never stuck with Sonic was that I didn't own Sega consoles (except Dreamcast) and I would always play sonic at a friend's house. I would like what I played for brief snippets, but would always have to quit soon after starting. So on the one hand I am used to Sonic in little bits, and on the other I finally have a console that would let me experience those bits on my own terms in a very convenient portable package. This was the first thing that opened me to the idea that I might actually enjoy Sonic Forces.

Tyler also said:

I really did go into Sonic Forces expecting to dislike and abandon it partway through, and that didn't happen at all. It's worse than Sonic Mania, but better than some of its more well-regarded predecessors.

Faint praise, but praise non-the-less. And it had me thinking, maybe there is a gem of a game here. The fact that it would be a game I could play in "3 to 5 hours" meant I had very little to lose.

Ultimately Sonic Forces is not an outstanding game. I found about a quarter of the game incredibly frustrating. But both before and after that I did have fun. It was simple and cliché, but it was a decent way to pass some time. However, I did gain something crucially important from playing Sonic Forces. I really like Sonic, and I really enjoy certain aspects of the game play. The ultimate thing I can conclude is that I am up for playing more, and better, Sonic games.

Forces is fast, fun and completely disposable. I had a nice time zipping through its 30 levels. It’s a little too on-rails, and I didn’t find any of the levels particularly memorable, although the final boss is quite fun.

The important thing is that this game lets you create your own fursona, who you can dress in a variety of outfits. This was my favourite part of the game. I could dress up like a dipshit and the named characters still had to interact with me. Yes, I’m wearing metal gloves, a cowboy hat and a pair of crocs. Now tell me how I’m going to win this war!

War is hell, but in the case of Forces it is also very silly. Here we have a goofy war story where you try to reclaim the world from Eggman’s forces 6 months after Sonic was defeated. It includes the immortal line: “Tails… Tails has just lost it”, but he seems mostly fine. He’s just hanging out with that creepy little pot-bellied Sonic. It’s not an interesting story, but it is very amusing when Sonic shows up to drop some woeful one liners. There’s also an evil CyberSonic named Infinite - he seems threatening, but never amounts to much.

There are some weird little control tics that felt unpredictable. Occasionally I would fly off a platform in the wrong direction for no reason I could determine. This is only an issue in later levels where some semblance of platforming skill is required. But otherwise is plays smoothly enough, runs well and looks great.

The music is a mixed bag. There’s some really fun songs, but there is also Infinite’s theme, which is sub-Linkin Park with dubstep flourishes. I hate it, but I also might love it. It’s such edgy try hard nonsense. Fuck it, it’s great.

Overall, after this and Adventure, I’m still not sure why people love this little blue critter so much. I’m going to pick up Sonic Origins tomorrow, which will hopefully be the key. I have vague memories of really enjoying the first couple of games when I played them years ago.

(x-posted from my blog)

After talking about two visual novels in a row, I felt like I needed to restore my personal gaming cred by going next to a “real” game. AND BOY THIS IS THE REALEST SHIT RIGHT HERE. THAT’S WHAT’S UP. FIST BUMP.

When the game does things right, it turns me into an excitable tween who talks just like that prior sentence. What Sonic Forces does best is presentation, which is best described as “dynamic” — camera angles switch at the right moment to capture your Avatar firing his/her grappling hook to narrowly avoid colliding with a train, before landing right back into the action of the stage with the vocal pop-rock soundtrack precisely timed (note that if you die and restart at a checkpoint, the music isn’t starting from the same place as it did when you started the stage). Sonic’s first boss fight against Infinite has Sonic on top of the coils of a snake while Infinite lays traps of red cubes on top which warp the surroundings if you run into them. The peak of this is in the stages where Sonic and the Avatar are together, where the characters automatically swap depending on the action triggered (and there’s a neat bit where the Avatar will use his/her grappling hook to latch on to a point to be able to drift on a tight curve, with Sonic hanging on) and when the “Double Boost” is triggered, Sonic and the Avatar do a powered-up high five in slow motion and, if you mashed the displayed button enough, they zoom off in a burst of massive speed while the game’s theme song (with lyrics about how the battle couldn’t be won alone) plays. The stages with Sonic or the Avatar — or both! — are a blast.

But, there is a problem with the game. A very big problem named Classic Sonic. For some reason, most likely the board listening to the braying of dullards who reflexively repeat “Classic Sonic was the only good part of Generations! We need more games with him!” without understanding what they’re really saying, Classic Sonic was forced into this game. His stages are all in a flat front-facing camera angle, with little opportunity to show off stage visuals and leaving the player to slog through uninteresting 2D obstacles with tinny music. The magic that worked in the 3D stages is completely ineffective in the 2D stages.

It’s not just that Classic Sonic’s stages are bad on their own, his presence is a net negative on the entire game. After playing a couple of the Classic Sonic stages you start to see problems that are present in the Classic stages present in the other stages — the 3D stages have frequent perspective shifts to 2D instead of sticking with the 3D person view, and the stages are probably the shortest they’ve ever been. The slapdash stage design and choppy story all point to the developers having to shuffle around everything for the sake of trying to make Classic Sonic make sense in it, and it’s a shame because you can’t help but see how so much better the game would be, for plot and for play, had it stuck with Sonic and the Avatar character.

The logical side of me knows that this game should not work. There’s a lot of audiovisual trickery involved to make the 3D stages more fun than they would be if they were stripped down, and almost a 1/3rd of the game is flat out terrible. But you know what, style is substance, and what this game does right, it does very right. (It also helps that once you clear the game, you unlock a stage select and you never ever have to play the Classic stages ever again.) If the game was allowed to be the Sonic/Avatar show as it strongly seems like it was intended to be, this could’ve been a fantastic game instead of simply an OK game.