Sonic Forces Reviews Thread

[Razule]

1 hour ago, superman43 said:

I wholly agree with this. There is no evidence that Sonic 4 episodes happened after 3&K or any other game really, apart from it being named Sonic 4. I just put it anywhere in the timeline... but my guess would be Sonic 4 eps happened after Generations or Lost World (IF THEY ARE CANON) rather than immediately after 3&K. Even if you won' t take this into account, Death Egg mk.II looks very different to the Death Egg in Forces.

 

Except it.. literally being called a sequel to Sonic 3? And featuring the return of Metal Sonic from the Little Planet?

[Indigo Rush]

All marketing and flavor text indicate that Sonic 4 takes place a few months after Sonic 3&K.

It also stated that both Sonic's Doomsday Zone and Knuckles' final boss fight took place at the same time, which isn't possible. 

So... it's only canon if you make it?

[superman43]

9 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

All marketing and flavor text indicate that Sonic 4 takes place a few months after Sonic 3&K.

It also stated that both Sonic's Doomsday Zone and Knuckles' final boss fight took place at the same time, which isn't possible. 

So... it's only canon if you make it?

So that means many adventures could have occurred during those few months.

[KittyNakajima]

Got the game as a Christmas present for a friend of mine and finally got to play it with them over the weekend. Game sucked so bad that I've silently promised to get them an actual good game to make up for it. We played it on Hard mode because this wasn't our first rodeo with a Sonic title and it felt very, very tracked. Absolutely didn't matter whether or not you were moving the analog joystick to go back or forth, all that mattered was that you were hitting the jump button to breeze on through by spamming the Homing Attack on enemies or springs.

Oh and as for deaths? Chalk that up to the maybe 5-10% of the stage that wasn't tracked or had an invisible barrier - specifically the last few seconds before reaching the goal point. Cheap. :/

As for the story, I think it's a pretty good example of nice idea and bad execution. Sonic's supposedly tortured for months by Eggman (who finally gets a W!) with a mysterious edgelord character whose reasons for being bad amount to "Shadow was mean to me. WAAAH."

 

All in all, while I'm normally a fan who tries to find the good in most modern Sonic titles, I absolutely can not defend Forces. I just can't. Even the Avatar generator pissed me off; getting clothes as a reward is one thing - but getting the same items in different colors after replaying stages as separate items? How about being able to receive the items with the options to toggle color like one does for the avatar? Problem solved.

I really hope that SEGA & Sonic Team take the constructive criticism and work on these faults in the next Sonic title. But given how painfully obvious this game was as a beta with pixelated backgrounds & misspellings (Omegal?), I'm somewhat nervously skeptical.

[Korke]

48 minutes ago, KittyNakajima said:

Oh and as for deaths? Chalk that up to the maybe 5-10% of the stage that wasn't tracked or had an invisible barrier - specifically the last few seconds before reaching the goal point. Cheap. :/

The invisible walls.... Urgh.

The game is already linear as fuck, and yet when I try to take some maneuvers using things like ramp+boost+jump momentum I got cockblocked every time by a invisible wall forcing me to die when I'm about to land in my destiny.

[Sonicka]

Finally managed to pick this up. 

It’s... well, it’s definitely an average joe of a title. But certainly doesn’t deserve the amount of scrutiny this site and other places give it. I think IGN we’re probably about on point in their review (for once). And I’d give it a 6 or 7 myself.

Personally, I still enjoyed the game as much as I suspected I would during the whole good vs bad game debate. Having demo’d this at EGX before release and enjoyed the sample then I still got my usually Sonic fix from this - even if it was a smaller dose.

That said, as much as I still disagree with articles relishing their own self worth of “oh look, I was right - this game was bad, told you’ fluff... I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed with this game myself.

I enjoyed the story and plot for what’s it’s worth -  a very ‘adventure-y type cheese-fest’ - although I did feel it made out like the situation was more dire than it actually was - i mean Eggman took over 99% of the planet, yet he still skulls around in his eggmobile very Un-dominating like. But then, if most of it was an illusion anyway then perhaps even he doesn’t really feel like he has total control of the planet?

Also... was The Phantom Ruby just an illusion gem manipulator? Did it really warp Classic sonic to this dimension? Or Does that mean Sonic is just an illusion (does this mean Sonic Mania’s antics in that and are illusions too when they warp from zone to zone... did the game happen?) Why on Earth have they fucked around with the timeline canon after insinuating the sonics are one and the same during generations and now they’re saying they are alternate entities? I mean, I don’t really care - but I also don’t really get it.

Also, I know it’s supposed to feel as though Classic was ‘sent home’ at the end but it feels more like he disappeared from existence  due to also being a phantom illusion - like he was supposed to be created from a need for the ruby to counterbalance Eggman’s experiments with it - therefore classic IS/SHOULD BE an illusion in this game. It would have made far more narrative sense anyway - and also could have been a good way to write in Boom Sonic had that remained. As it is now it comes across as just cross promotion to needlessly tie in Sonic Mania.  

It was just unfortunate Classic Sonic was the worst part of this game, i do not care about the insignificance to the overall plot (and besides - he’s tails B plot line). And I understand the legacy inclusion - but he felt so ham fisted in in the end as just to further reference 25 years of Sonic, and why bother when Sonic Mania exists? I couldn’t even really appreciate all the little homages in the levels that throwback to the classic games because they just played... well, not terribly, but it was boring. He was well damn fine in generations so I don’t understand how this became so dull, something felt off with the controls more so than ever, and they topped it off with further uninspired level designs. The music certainly didn’t help... I mean what the actual hell were those tracks even? Like some sort of bad fan attempt to 16 bit it up? What happened here?

Thankfully i did have a blast with Sonic and Avatar and the combined stages. I am disappointed they nerfed Modern Sonic’s stages and abilities, especially since it looks and promises to play like a boost game - but doesn’t. Whereas the boost titles are awesome rollercoaster rides, these levels are brutally short and just coast along in comparison - the linear hand holding is completely unnecessary too - for cinematic effect they’ve taken so much of the fun away via control! Even QTE’s were laughable compared to how tense they could be in Sonic Unleashed.

And wisps... once again, little explanation for their inclusion and were pointless, apart from the skill sets they gave Avatar. Why even bother having boost wisps in the game after Sonic Generations and Lost World? ‘Specially if there’s hundreds scattered about the level like they want us to be able to boost as much as possible. In fact sometimes there are horizontal lines of 10 of them to ensure you hit one - it’s almost as bad as boost pads. Don’t get me wrong, there’s moments of brilliance to Sonic’s levels, but they don’t stick and just get lost in the hand-holding, not to mention the moment I’m in the rhythm with a level... it ends - why? Why are some of these not even 60 seconds in length? Even Sonic Colours non-main levels weren’t this short.

Avatar however... I did enjoy this aspect quite a lot. I like designing mine, constantly updating the outfits, and playing as Avatar was probably the most fun of the three characters and in combination with Sonic. There was lots of experimentation to be had here with the wispon, and slingshotting my way through a lot of these levels were great fun. But again. Short.

So look, the game to me was fine. But it could have been a whole lot more as well. At least it felt and looked complete and polished - the story was mostly enjoyable (pop-out cutscenes be damned to hell!), and the music for the most part was awesome (I love me some double boost fist bump tunage). Plus the bosses were actually a highlight in this game.

Saying all that doesn’t change that the gameplay, level design and mechanics coming across as half-assed and inferior to almost every other 3D Sonic game before it - I don’t think anything is broken by the way, it’s just I’ve played better than this.

I find this to be especially true when you compare it to Sonic Lost World, a game I still think holds Sonic Teams most creative flair and is their most accomplished title... had it sold well. It was great solid fun - and that deserved a follow-up more than Forces deserved development. 

I also appreciated the Shadow DLC and skin inclusion (very nice!), but after playing some of the post game content I don’t think I’ll be red ringing/numbering/moon medaling each level - even the layouts for these were quite uninspired, regrettably. 

So Meh game is meh. Originally it was going to stay on my shelf and gather dust... But then I traded it in. I don’t normally like to sell any of my Sonic game collection, but as I lost my copy of Sonic Lost World for WiiU last year, I felt Sonic Forces could do me some good whilst it’s trade in value is still high. So I’m in for a good time over the next week at least! I’ll pickup Sonic Forces again from the bargain bin in a few years when it’s a few bob, probably.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

4 hours ago, Son-icka said:

It’s... well, it’s definitely an average joe of a title. But certainly doesn’t deserve the amount of scrutiny this site and other places give it. I think IGN we’re probably about on point in their review (for once). And I’d give it a 6 or 7 myself.

*rest of post*

Fair review. 

The reason the game performed lower than it probably should have was because this was the highly anticipated first Sonic title in over 4 years. In the time since the last big title we've had the Sonic Boom disaster, a series of PR apologies from SEGA officials about the quality in the Sonic series and how they've betrayed fans trust, "We want Sonic to be a global brand again", etc etc. The game did not deliver at all in the way that they had hyped fans up for. Not even close. This game didn't need to be revolutionary but it really, really at minimum should have been something close to Generations level in terms of quality. SEGA had just managed that with Colors and Gens in succession, so why they wouldn't after having the longest development period (for Sonic games) in their company history is baffling and inexcusable, to be frank.

I agree with you that independently of that Forces was about average. I'd rated it about the same as you actually. I like the way Sonic was written (most of the other characters were poorly written, at best) and some of the gameplay looks like it has potential to be good if invested in more heavily (ignoring the obvious issues such as the uninspired, hyper-linear stage design and inconsistent physics). Even the CaC has some potential in the franchise if handled properly. But this game was definitely not worth a 4 year waiting period. It honestly look like a game that looks like it could have been properly released in 2013 instead of Lost World,  following Generations. But this is a 2017 PS4 generation title. Very disappointing. 

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I finally played  it and finished the story. I had fun. Nothing more, nothing less. 

[Pacifist_Zavok]

I bought it for my Switch at a discounted price and I thought, it couldn't really be that bad given that the price was lower than retail but boy was I wrong.

 

Let me say, I find the avatar thing pretty cool but the rest of the game is just mediocre. Okay, the graphics look great and the music is really good too but the gameplay or lack thereof is a serious issue for me.

3D gameplay usually lasts only about 1m30s and I don't even get to enjoy the stage but just getting passed it. Now, it doesn't help it sometimes just takes a single button to get through it and that isn't really enjoyable at all then you have the quick time events.. sigh.

 

2D gameplay is somehow even worse. Whether it's Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic or the Avatar they all feel so freakishly heavy and I have difficulty making a precise jump to where I want to go. Plus, Classic Sonic running down and then going up just loses all of his speed and isn't able to make it. Like, SERIOUSLY?! WHY!

 

Sonic Forces is such a bad game I had to boot up Sonic Mania so that I could get a feel of what proper Sonic gameplay feels like as I kinda felt I was losing it.

 

P.S. I paid like $10 but still feel ripped off. Sonic Runners Adventure is personally way better than Sonic Forces and yeah, it's a one button game but the gameplay at least feels done right.

[Marco9966]

They should do the Adventure style with proper physics, and if they don't know how to hire some Adventure fan developers, or even other developers that know about controls and physics!

[Iko]

1 hour ago, Pacifist_Zavok said:

3D gameplay usually lasts only about 1m30s and I don't even get to enjoy the stage but just getting passed it. Now, it doesn't help it sometimes just takes a single button to get through it and that isn't really enjoyable at all then you have the quick time events.. sigh.

I played the game too, while I think it's mediocre at best, I still had a little bit of fun. To me, the fun came from doing the side objectives in every level, such as rank S, red rings, numbers and moon rings; in some levels they are challenging to get, and they require more interaction in the level than just holding a button. Those collectables are almost completely useless and they don't give any reward when you get all of them, though the satisfaction of collecting them all is enough to justify the time spent, for me at least.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that the game is bad, just that I disagree with the critic that the game plays itself and you just need to press 1 button... that's only if you want to rush the story without caring of 100%. The other boost games aren't much better in that reguard.

1 hour ago, Pacifist_Zavok said:

2D gameplay is somehow even worse. Whether it's Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic or the Avatar they all feel so freakishly heavy and I have difficulty making a precise jump to where I want to go. Plus, Classic Sonic running down and then going up just loses all of his speed and isn't able to make it. Like, SERIOUSLY?! WHY!

The gameplay and physics in this game are HEAVILY flawed, the way how the character gains momentum and preserves inertia is totally unnatural and unintuitive, no matter if it's classic or modern, 2D or 3D. Apparently, this is because the game is built over Sonic Lost World's gameplay engine (that's what I read somewhere, I have no source of this).

Another big problem is in those level sections where you are on a linear course, and the road splits... you want to take the other road, but Sonic seems to be on rail and fights against you when you try to change road. Seems like Sonic is partially on rails in those sections, and his movements are very limited; that's just bad (but being honest, I remember other modern games having similar issues, not just Forces).

Those are objective issues, actual flaws and can't be denied, and I think that's the main problem of the game, even worse than the linear level design.

1 hour ago, Pacifist_Zavok said:

Sonic Forces is such a bad game I had to boot up Sonic Mania so that I could get a feel of what proper Sonic gameplay feels like as I kinda felt I was losing it.

I believe that Sonic Forces could be improved with patches; it will remain a mediocre game, but at least, if they fix the gameplay and make the level design a bit more challenging (not hard, but at least with some more obstacles so that it requires more player interaction), it would at least become an enjoyable game, on par with the other boost games.

Mania is getting improvement patches, why not Forces too? I mean, at least, with all those negative critics, let people see that you are trying to address the feedback...