NOTE: This review was originally posted to Tumblr on June 10, 2019, and has been reposted here for archival purposes. It may not reflect recent events or my current opinions.
For a more recent review of Sonic Forces, click here.
So let’s take a step back to 2016 for a moment. That year was obviously Sonic’s 25th anniversary, and about that time there was of course a lot of speculation on the next Sonic title and what Sega would do to celebrate the anniversary of the franchise. That was, of course, revealed during the 25th anniversary party livestream when two new games were announced - One being Sonic Mania, and the other being a game referred to as “Project Sonic 2017.” The latter of which as you might know turned out to be Sonic Forces, the next 3D Sonic game in an attempt by Sonic Team to appeal both the classic and modern crowd of Sonic fans. If you’ve been my friend for the past 3 years of course, you might remember that I reviewed Sonic Generations for Sonic’s 25th anniversary, and to be honest I haven’t really deviated from my original opinions. Sonic Generations is potentially my favorite game in the series, as I feel it had arguably the best level design combined with a great emphasis on speed as a package that celebrated a lot of what I loved about the series. Sonic Colors I reviewed more recently, and you probably know how I feel about that - while it’s not perfect or even really a 3D Sonic game for the most part, I still find it to be an incredibly enjoyable experience, and at the point of Sonic’s 25th Anniversary it was my second favorite game in the series behind Generations, and still is in my Top 3 along with Mania. I found myself really liking the “Boost” formula of games, and to this day I would argue that when it’s designed well it’s easily the most refined and fun out of any other Sonic gameplay style. All I really felt was needed was a Boost game that was longer and had a deeper, more interesting story and if Sega did that I would instantly give them all of my money. So I was actually pretty hyped for Sonic Forces, even moreso than Sonic Mania. And for that entire wait up until it’s release, I pretty much dismissed any criticism of the game people had. I mean, really, I was expecting simply a more fleshed out follow-up to Generations, it can’t be bad, right?
Well, the game released and reception was… iffy.
I mean, Sonic Forces was still far from 06 or Rise of Lyric in terms of being an incredibly hated game, but it’s review numbers were far from great either. In general, the consensus was that it wasn’t what I was expecting - the level design was “eh,” and other factors like Classic Sonic’s gameplay and the story weren’t that good either. And I was definitely disappointed to see this because, well, I was expecting Generations 2 - a new 3D game that may not have blown my mind but at least would be one of the best 3D titles and maybe one of the best in the series. I actually ended up waiting a long time to get Sonic Forces. Considering what I heard about it, $40 seemed like a bit too much for a game of this quality, and I didn’t get it until a year later when I snagged it in a Humble Bundle sale for $20. Since then, I’ve played through the game twice - once after getting, and once for this review. I had originally wanted to review this game after I reviewed Sonic Colors back in the fall but never got around to it, and now… well, here’s my opinion on the game.
The story this time goes for a darker approach compared to Colors, Generations and Lost World. Dr. Eggman attacks a city, leading Sonic to go after him. However, he is defeated by Infinite, a character who is powered by the Phantom Ruby. Sonic is then held prisoner at the Death Egg, and without Sonic, Dr. Eggman takes over the world. Sonic’s other friends decide to team up and form a resistance. Sonic manages to break out of the prison, and “Classic Sonic” (who’s referred to as “the Sonic from another dimension”) in this game saves Tails from Chaos, and “The Resistance” employs a new fighter who they refer to as “The Rookie” - and is your custom character.
So, this story is… interesting? I will say that overall I enjoyed it and that it’s about what I expected from a darker Sonic game, but it does have it’s share of… weird things. I do like how Sonic’s character plays out in this story, he retains his cockiness that I like about him, and I do like a lot of the concepts here - namely “The Resistance” and the dystopian version of Sonic’s world after he is defeated. One thing I also liked was the conversations between all the characters on the map screen as well as in the stages themselves. I just thought it was a nice touch and it didn’t get annoying like, y’know, the constant homing missile warnings in Sonic Generations’ final boss. However, there are some… weird things about it. Some of the concepts, while good, go extremely underdeveloped. Infinite as a villain is pretty meh, not having really any personality traits outside of being “evil,” basically being a pretty run-of-the-mill edgy dark villain, and even when you get into Episode Shadow his backstory isn’t even really that satisfying or interesting, he’s mad because he got defeated by Shadow in a fight and… that’s about it. I also do like how they brought back former characters and villains, but again, none of them are utilized that well. Chaos, in particular, is disappointing, since he’s literally defeated in a mere cutscene early on in the game. Not some battle or anything, he’s just defeated in a few seconds in a cutscene early in the game. This just leaves me to believe that there was a potential for a really good Sonic story here… but they didn’t really go all the way with it.
But in all fairness, like I said in my Sonic Adventure 2 review, story isn’t really important to me in a Sonic game, as I obviously don’t expect Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts level writing in Sonic games, and enjoy them primarily for the gameplay. Like I said, Sonic Forces follows the “boost” formula of games a la Colors and Generations. There are three playable characters in the game, and it works similarly to Generations. Modern Sonic has a combination of 3D and 2D sidescrolling gameplay, Classic Sonic plays in a 2.5D setting, but there’s also the new character in the form of the avatar, which has a combination of 3D and 2D platforming, but without Sonic’s speed and with the wispon, which depending on the version you use has different abilities and uses based on which version of it you use. Oh yeah, the wisps return in this game which may create mixed reactions based on different people. Personally I’ve never minded the wisps in any Sonic game, including this one, and for what it is I still think they do spice up the gameplay, but I just want to know the context of them being here. And the same goes for Lost World, really. Obviously Sonic Colors introduced them and considering the context of the story I definitely understood their place in the gameplay. Sonic Generations had them, but only for one level, that being Planet Wisp, and again, I can understand it in that case. But it’s never really explained why they are here in this game, pretty sure after Colors they just returned to their home planet. That aside, if Generations went more for the Unleashed HD style of boost gameplay, then I can easily say that Forces goes more for the Colors Wii style of boost gameplay. One could argue that Forces works more as a 2.5D game with some moments of 3D, and that’s in addition to having wisps to use as abilities among other things. Colors Wii tends to be the game people compare Forces particularly to a lot, and I have heard some claims that had their release dates been swapped Forces would’ve been a lot better received and Colors would’ve been seen a lot more negatively. For a few reasons, I find myself disagreeing with this notion. Yeah, in terms of gameplay they can be compared to having similar takes on the Boost formula, but a lot of the criticism I’ve seen aimed at Forces doesn’t really have anything to do with having too much 2D or whatnot. The criticism towards Forces stem from it being too automated, lacking challenge in the level design being uninteresting. Say what you want about Colors, but in terms of level design I still feel it holds up, and the game also controls pretty well in both 2D and 3D sections.
So that gets me started on one thing, Sonic Forces’ controls. For both Modern Sonic and the Avatar In 3D, I think it works just fine, being fairly similar to Generations’ control scheme overall and since that is my favorite Sonic game I did find it pretty easy to transition. The 2D controls, however, get kind of… weird. Classic Sonic I think in particular controls the most awkwardly and is the hardest to get used to. I have seen a lot of criticism for how classic Sonic controls in 2D, but to be honest I didn’t really find it to be that bad. Not as good as the classics, sure, but as an adaptation of 2D Sonic into the Boost formula, I felt it worked fine for what it was. Forces’ Classic Sonic controls feel… off. Classic Sonic is extremely weighty in comparison to Generations, and his jumps just don’t exactly feel right to me. I was constantly finding myself overshooting my jumps simply because Classic Sonic’s controls were just awkward and hard to get used to. Another odd thing is the Drop Dash ability where pressing A twice causes you to spin dash at the end of a jump. This seems a neat ability I guess, but as someone who habitually presses the A button twice constantly, I did find myself accidentally pulling it off when I didn’t want to, leading to some deaths. Overall, let’s just say, if you didn’t like Classic Sonic in Generations, you most likely won’t like him that much here either. Modern Sonic and Avatar’s controls in 2D aren’t as bad and not as hard to get used to, but still has more of the same problem with just feeling too “weighty.” It definitely became noticeable later in the game when 2D platforming became a lot more frequent. At least I was able to say I could get used to it, but it still feels awkward in general.
And then there’s the level design which is generally the biggest criticism of this game. And to be honest… I didn’t find it to be as bad as everyone said. I will admit it is more simplified than Colors and Generations, and in general it’s definitely not anything to write home about, being a lot more automated and flat in comparison to those games, but at the same time… I was still able to run into some interesting things here and there. The game does offer a few alternative pathways that I liked about Generations, although it’s nowhere near to the same extent. The alternate pathways don’t really last as long and the levels aren’t anywhere as big as Generations’, but it’s still enjoyable enough on repeat playthroughs. Platforming I still felt was pretty fun when it occured, and I will say that the more I played of the game, the more interesting the level design got. It still never reached the point of games like Colors, Generations, Adventure 1 and 2 or even Lost World, but the levels were still fun to play through especially later in the game as well as the different mission stages which I felt did some interesting things on their own, particularly the one stage where the level was pretty much completely made out of explosive blocks and you had to get from one place to another fast enough so you wouldn’t get killed. There are definitely a lot of elements of good level design here, and I feel like if the game wasn’t created in just a year those elements probably would’ve been realized better. Oddly enough, I actually felt the Avatar stages tended to have the most interesting and best level design of this game. Maybe it’s due to having a greater focus on actual platforming, but either way I would still consider the Avatar stages and gameplay to be my favorite part of the game. Although I do have to admit - when the level design falls flat, it… really falls flat. I feel like this game goes for more “spectacle” than Colors or Generations and as a result the level design just isn’t as interesting, and there are some sections where the game feels too automated and gives off the stereotype of the Boost games being purely “boost to win.” Again, I don’t really think it’s bad as some may claim it to be here, but those moments definitely stick out. Overall, I’d say as far as level design goes, when it’s good, it’s pretty fun, but when it falls flat… well, then it just becomes a spectacle platformer and adds into the negative image of the Boost games. The level motifs were somewhat interesting, the game uses Green Hill and Chemical Plant again but fortunately that’s the only two “reused” stages as far as I can tell and some of the new setpieces, like the City and Eggman Metropolis are actually pretty cool and neat. But there are times when, again, level motifs and setpieces go underdeveloped. Null Space I thought was a major disappointment because that actually seemed like a new, unique setting for a level, and then when you actually play it… Sonic and the Avatar double boost out of there in a few seconds with no real obstacles and are back into the regular Eggman Metropolis stage. I really feel Null Space would’ve been neat, maybe having new enemies or hazards, or just being a cool concept for a level in general… but no, the actual “Null Space” part of the level lasts for a few seconds and the rest is just plain Eggman Metropolis. What an asspull.
But, to go back a bit, I did want to talk about the Avatar. While a lot of people made fun of this and referenced it back to deviantART, which to be fair was pretty much seen from a mile away, I actually had a lot of fun with the Avatar mechanics in this game. I actually recreated my two fursonas in the game on both the playthroughs I did, so… I guess there’s that? I also liked the “wispon” abilities, it was fun to swap out the weapons in order to have different effects or just add to what I was already doing with one. The wisps are spread throughout the stages and depending on what wispon your avatar is wearing it can have different special effects. For example, if you have a Burst wispon and you pick up the Burst wisp, you can basically jump using the burst and reach new heights, which I did find interesting and one thing I could actually see adding some level of replay value to this game. It makes me kind of hope they continue adding the Avatar feature in later Sonic games since it was definitely fun to use with all the cosmetics and weapons that you could use.
Then there’s the presentation. Sonic Forces, I think is a pretty visually appealing game. Maybe not the best I would have expected from current gen hardware (especially since the game appears to have no real benefits using it on a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X), but it was still bright, colorful and I felt the level motifs and themes were nice to look at. The music I also thought was really good. A lot of the Classic Sonic themes are kind of meh, due to using a weird synth and soundfont for every theme, although the actual compositions themselves I liked, and the rest of the music I found catchy and fun to listen to. My favorite theme of this game was the Prison Hall theme, for some reason I really liked the lyrics and composition… I actually felt it even fit pretty well with the first Avatar I made.
Conclusion
To be honest, this is a somewhat similar case to Star Fox Zero to me. It’s a game I do find myself liking despite being somewhat mixed overall, but I still don’t really have too much to say about it. I will say I enjoyed it a lot more than most other people did, and I still feel it was far from a bad Sonic game. I’ll even go as far as to say I enjoyed it more than Sonic Heroes.
Yeah.
I said it.
What are you going to do about it?
Either way, I wouldn’t say it was one of my favorite Sonic games, it really wasn’t anything too particularly spectacular or interesting, but at the same time I would be lying if I said I didn’t have my fun with it because to be honest I did. I mean, despite being a 4 hour game, I managed to get almost 13 hours of playtime out of it so far and even aside for the two playthroughs I did I found myself replaying individual stages just for the hell of it, something I also do with Generations and Adventure 2. So, overall, I don’t really find Sonic Forces to be that bad, in fact I think it is a really enjoyable game. But at the same time, I still feel Sonic Team could’ve done better with this game, and I hope the next game in the series, whether it takes the Adventure or Boost formula, is just more ambition and has more attention to detail.
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