Sonic Forces Reviews Thread

[Spooky Mulder]

19 minutes ago, RLS Legacy said:

I know there are more than a few people here that will relish this.

Mania's day 1 sales:

And Forces' day 1 sales:

Obviously on one level it's upsetting to me as a Sonic fan to see this kind of underperformance, but... Christ. And this is despite the whole Denuvo fallout surrounding Mania.

Guess those people wanting Forces to bomb got their wish. Now to see where SEGA goes from here.

Worth noting that given the different audiences Forces and Mania hypothetically appeal to that this could impact sales on Steam versus consoles.

[Milo]

GameInformer review: "Running a Familiar Route"

Quote

Despite my multiple gripes with Sonic Forces, I still enjoyed the adventure. 3D Sonic games still aren't to where they should be after such a long time of iteration and experimentation, but through improved gameplay and level design, Sonic Forces continues the series' evolution in the right direction.

Score: 6.5/10

[Radiant Hero Ike]

I seem to be weirdly accustomed to any review under 7 being bad, so when I see a 6.5 but read some relatively positive points in the actual review, it throws me off.

[KHCast]

13 minutes ago, Yeow said:

but through improved gameplay and level design, Sonic Forces continues the series' evolution in the right direction.

What. Huh? Come again? Forces I thought was a step back, not improvement on past games lol(gameplay wise anyway)

[Dr. Detective]

Remember, reviews are a collection of different opinions. Who cares if one thinks it's an improvement and another doesn't. At this point it doesn't matter.

[KHCast]

I know but I'm still interested to hear why they think what they do. I don't see how this improved on Gens at all, so want to understand why they feel that way personally. Not saying why, and just saying it is, leaves things to be desired 

Also companies apparently care

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

41 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Yeah, it's just alright. Nothing more.

It being a 3D Sonic game coming out on the heels of a universally well-loved 2D Sonic game and a 3D Mario game kind of makes it all the more saddening. 

I know the issue isn't 2D or 3D or Sonic itself. It's the people in charge that are to blame but for the next 2 or 3 years or whatever I'm gonna have to deal with more nonsense about how 3D Sonic sucks and can't work and whatever else. 

Thinking about Sonic the way I like him now makes me sad and angry. I don't even feel like picking up Mania now. I don't want to see Classic Sonic's face ever again. I don't want these people to be allowed to make Sonic games anymore. I'm not even sure how excited I'll be for the next game now. I kind of wish I had remained angry about Forces after I saw the reveal trailer but the possibility of what it could have been flooded my mind based on what I was seeing. And even when I lowered my expectations it still didn't manage to be as cohesive as I wished. It sucks worse considering how into it I was at the start and how it was bringing me back a little at the end only for it to stop upon reflection due to how lackluster the game's middle was and how startling the revelation about the level locations being pretty much all revealed to us before release despite the complaints about wanting to see more areas.

I'll always love this series, it's world, it's characters, and the idea behind it's gameplay but I'm going to have to drown myself in the IDW comics, fan-art, fan-fiction, fan-comics, Role-plays, and my own art to stay afloat here. They can't call upon Taxman, Sumo Digital, Ian Flynn, and whoever else has handled their series better than they have all the time. 

Being a fan of Sonic is hard when you're NOT a fan of Sonic Team. 

I don't even think this game is straight up bad or anything. I think it's "Alright" but Jesus. I've had it. The reactions to it and my own disappointment with it coupled with the arguments about it leading up to release as well as the 3 year wait were so NOT fucking worth it. 

My favorite premise for a Sonic game. A promising sequence of events laid out before them. Really inspired prequel comics. Yet when it came time to deal out the main dish the ones we have no choice but to rely on just fumbled something out, not capitalizing on it to it's fullest at all.

The fact that there is stuff in it that I like a lot is probably making it worse. Rise of Lyric didn't make me feel this way and neither did Lost World. I like Forces more than both of those and yet I feel the most sad and angry about this one. 

I'm not going to do this song and dance the same way I've done before. No longer. From now on, everything is being met with skepticism if it's got Sonic Team's name on it. 

 

Why wouldn't anyone look at anything with a critical eye in the first place? Games shouldn't be taken at face value when it comes to marketing.

 

[rahkeesh]

48 minutes ago, Spooky Mulder said:

Worth noting that given the different audiences Forces and Mania hypothetically appeal to that this could impact sales on Steam versus consoles.

Steam's Mania sales are supposedly miniscule compared to the console ones. Although the 2-week delay probably helped with that.

Which just makes Forces showing even more pathetic. Not to mention it was surely far more expensive to make.

Watching for this game to be deeply discounted in the winter sale.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Jar Jar Analysis 1138 said:

Why wouldn't anyone look at anything with a critical eye in the first place? Games shouldn't be taken at face value when it comes to marketing.

Who said anything about not looking at things with a critical eye before this? That's not the same thing as blatant skepticism of literally everything you're looking at. Criticism comes both ways. From now on, whatever I see, no matter what it is, I'm just not going to believe it until it's in my hands. Because fuck this rubbish garbage situation 3D Sonic is in. I don't want the people who allowed it to get this way to get my hopes up for anything regarding their games ever again right now.

I may change my mind later about how fair I want to be when reacting to whatever they put out when I cool off sometime down the road but right now everything is evil when it comes to Sonic Team and their mismanaged sludge-fest of a development cycle.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

40 minutes ago, Radiant Hero Ike said:

I seem to be weirdly accustomed to any review under 7 being bad, so when I see a 6.5 but read some relatively positive points in the actual review, it throws me off.

And I know they're not a hive mind, but still,  those circumstances from Gameinformer of all outlets just adds to the confusion.  Kek.

[Legendary Emerald]

5 hours ago, Sr101 said:

I guess i should clarify: im not trying to say 06 has no glitches and is coded well... i'm just saying that it was actually fun imo and even when it was a mess i was still not bored like i was with forces

I’m of this opinion as well. Sonic Forces and Sonic 2006 are both blatently unfinished, mismanaged trash fires; the only difference is Forces doesn’t wear it on its sleeve. You have to actively hit it with a mallet to show the cracks its been hiding with glue the whole time.

Both stories have holes and don’t hold up to scrutiny, but at least the cutscenes in 2006 don’t feel like they are being cut off by the camera running out of film mid-take. And I don’t remember Mephiles' killing of Sonic being followed by a black screen with white text telling us what happened next.

Both games have good soundtracks, but Sonic 2006 lets you spend more than a minute and thirty seconds in a level so that it has a chance to stick in your head and form an association. Hey, you remember that great Modern Sonic track in Forces? The one with the guitars and the synth? Which level was that song in again?

Both games have bad gameplay, but at least Sonic 2006 IS a game more often than not. I’d rather explore the multiple routes and secrets of Dusty Desert, risking falling into quicksand or through level geometry itself, than attempt to find shortcuts or red rings in the straight hallways of Forces.

Both games are straight up bad in my view, and 2006 is objectively worse from a programming standpoint. But there was still more for me, personally, in Sonic’s ‘06 outing than in Sonic Forces.

[Spooky Mulder]

30 minutes ago, rahkeesh said:

Steam's Mania sales are supposedly miniscule compared to the console ones. Although the 2-week delay probably helped with that.

Which just makes Forces showing even more pathetic. Not to mention it was surely far more expensive to make.

Watching for this game to be deeply discounted in the winter sale.

My point is Forces might have more respectable numbers on consoles than these pathetic Steam numbers. (Maybe) Wait for the data.

[Zippo]

L

M

A

O

[KHCast]

18 minutes ago, Zippo said:

L

M

A

O

Welp. I'm looking forward to johnnys thoughts 

[rahkeesh]

22 minutes ago, Spooky Mulder said:

My point is Forces might have more respectable numbers on consoles than these pathetic Steam numbers. (Maybe) Wait for the data.

I... get that? And in fact I'm expecting Forces to do much better on console than PC.

The problem here... is that is also true of Mania. Its *weakest* platform put up tens of thousands of sales.

Generations all in all seems to have sold 1 PC copy for every ~4 console copies. Forces need orders of magnitude more lopsided ratio to keep up.

Although the game will probably get some holiday boost. Especially if it goes dirt cheap.

[Harkofthewaa]

1 hour ago, Radiant Hero Ike said:

I seem to be weirdly accustomed to any review under 7 being bad, so when I see a 6.5 but read some relatively positive points in the actual review, it throws me off.

That would be because in Gameinfromer, a 6 means love it or hate it, basically. Honestly, a 6.5 is a bit higher than what I expected from them.

[ShadowSJG]

So,is the end of 3d sonic?

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

17 minutes ago, ShadowSJG said:

So,is the end of 3d sonic?

Ugh, I really hope not. And I'm as big a "Classic fan" as one can possibly be.

[GuyWithThePie]

At worst, Forces will likely be to the Boost formula what '06 was to the Adventure formula.

[GentlemanX]

Enough critics have positive things to say about Forces that I doubt everything from the game will be abandoned - in particular the Avatar keeps getting praised in these reviews as a great feature which needed some polishing in the gameplay department. Given that's the game's main feature, I think that means at the very least it'll be sticking around like the wisps.

As someone who doesn't mind the boost gameplay but prefers the Adventure style, I'm not going to be disappointed if they try out a new gameplay style. After Lost World and Rise of Lyric, they'll have to start from scratch again though - neither of those went over well enough to use as a baseline. So long as they keep Modern Sonic's world and characters and try to keep the action-adventure tone this game brought back, I'd welcome a fresh gameplay style. It's hard to say if I'd like it or not, given Lost World they could easily go in a direction I'll like even less, but if the boost gameplay is at a dead end I don't think it would hurt to keep reinventing the wheel.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 hour ago, ShadowSJG said:

So,is the end of 3d sonic?

 We're going to need a far more reviled and awful game to do that. 

Sonic Forces is not shaping up to be that game.

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

48 minutes ago, GuyWithThePie said:

At worst, Forces will likely be to the Boost formula what '06 was to the Adventure formula.

Well....The adventure formula was still a big part in "Sonic World Adventure". Not the physics exactly but a lot of the aspects of it. Same with Generations to a lesser degree...(lol Colors).

It really lost any sort of semblance after 2011.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

56 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Ace Joranvexeon said:

 We're going to need a far more reviled and awful game to do that. 

Sonic Forces is not shaping up to be that game.

It's true that Forces is not a disaster in the way that '06 or boom were. But it's also far from a success. The overall reception to it has been lukewarm at best--57% on metacritic, is not good at all. Not close. 

If SEGA actually means business this time about restoring the sonic brand, they will take some course of action here. At this point what they actually do is anyone''s guess but this game will not be successful enough for them to stay the course. Especially after the brief period of the Media's love affair with Mania. Something will change and I don't think it'll be a small change either.

[KHCast]

Wonder if sega will delist Forces eventually, cause didn't they say awhile back they delist sonic games that are like under 60% on metacritic or something?

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

3 hours ago, KHCast said:

Wonder if sega will delist Forces eventually, cause didn't they say awhile back they delist sonic games that are like under 60% on metacritic or something?

They did, but...

Forces is not '06 or Shadow levels of bad. I think Forces will be let off the hook.

And Forces is only like 3-4 points below the 60 mark. If we get 2 more 7/10's, it'll pass the mark.