Sonic Forces Reviews Thread

[RLS Legacy]

3 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

So we're 3 days in... and the game only has 26 reviews on metacritic, across all platforms

In comparison, SLW has 64, and Sonic Generations has 98

Combined with the near nonexistent advertising in anywhere that isn't Japan, uh... how many people are going to know about this game, exactly? And with how insignificant Sonic is to Japan in the first place, how are sales going to fare under these conditions???

Not tremendously well.

Compared to Mania:

[The Deleter]

10 minutes ago, RLS Legacy said:

Not tremendously well.

Compared to Mania:

12 minutes ago, JaidynReiman said:

Not to mention its release date just over a week after Mario Odyssey not helping anything.

It's even worse when I found after I posted that, that Mania has a total around one hundred and eight reviews in comparison

And it was a digital side-game

It's almost like the reviewers don't even care about mainline Sonic at this point... Can't blame them, but still, a new Sonic game should be a pretty big event...

 

[Dr. Mechano]

26 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

It's even worse when I found after I posted that, that Mania has a total around one hundred and eight reviews in comparison

And it was a digital side-game

It's almost like the reviewers don't even care about mainline Sonic at this point... Can't blame them, but still, a new Sonic game should be a pretty big event...

 

Eh, Mania feels more like a "mainline" game honestly; Simple core Sonic platforming in its purest form. Forces feels like the weird, gimmicky side-game with all its half-baked alternative gameplay modes and focus on the custom character.

[speedfreak]

Well I wonder if this will be a wake up call to Sega/Sonic Team. I don't want 3D Sonic to die but if this is the best they got then can't say I'll really miss it. 

[Osmium]

56 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

It's almost like the reviewers don't even care about mainline Sonic at this point... Can't blame them, but still, a new Sonic game should be a pretty big event...

Honestly I don't find it surprising at all. There's not much to care about in the first place for mainline Sonic.

[Meta77]

Wake up call? Doubt it. They will look to the fans having fun with this game on YouTube and the good praise from people like jim and PlayStation life style . At best we probably just won't see classic again

[The Deleter]

13 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Wake up call? Doubt it. They will look to the fans having fun with this game on YouTube and the good praise from people like jim and PlayStation life style . At best we probably just won't see classic again

They just said in a recent interview that they're going to be looking into bringing what people enjoy about Mania into the 3D games

Forces had Modern say "I'm sure we'll see him again someday"

If anything this is possibly the worst possible scenario for this kind of a situation, considering how Sonic Team never even listens to the criticism past the "dark stories" and "shitty friends" outcry after Shadow and 06 released, and that's just because of how loud they were. No mass amount of public opinion has pinned Classic down as the main and sole reason why Forces is a bad game, in comparison.

[AdventChild]

1 minute ago, Meta77 said:

Wake up call? Doubt it. They will look to the fans having fun with this game on YouTube and the good praise from people like jim and PlayStation life style . At best we probably just won't see classic again

I believe the poor sales will definitely be the wake up call because money is all they care about and doesn't matter what fans think. The profits/sales will be the final say overall and with all these factors of poor marketing/advertisement, release after Mario Odyssey, poor reviews/reception would definitely contribute to that as well. And already there is evidence of that. Along with how much of a success Mania is over Forces, Classic Sonic seems to be here to stay or at least, gives way towards a Mania sequel.

We can only hope they'll lay to rest the Boost formula or even give Sonic the break (from both mainstream/side games) so Sonic Team can get their crap together, but even that's doubtful. Of course, I'd rather see them work on a revival of other Sega franchises instead that have been long forgotten by them like a new Streets of Rage, JSRF, Virtua Fighter, etc. and NOT some cheap port on iOS/Android/Mobile crap.

[Blue Blood]

8 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Wake up call? Doubt it. They will look to the fans having fun with this game on YouTube and the good praise from people like jim and PlayStation life style . At best we probably just won't see classic again

No mainline Sonic game has ever been swept under the carpet and ignored as much as Forces. SEGA didn't put a big behind it, critics aren't very interested regardless of whether or not they actually like it and even the fanbase is very noticeably torn. The sales of this game will probably speak loudest of all to SEGA, and honestly I don't see Forces knocking the ball out of that park either.

Lacklustre reception, minimal buzz, and low sales... It's the opposite of Mania.

[Mad Convoy]

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

It's even worse when I found after I posted that, that Mania has a total around one hundred and eight reviews in comparison

And it was a digital side-game

It's almost like the reviewers don't even care about mainline Sonic at this point... Can't blame them, but still, a new Sonic game should be a pretty big event...

 

Especially weird is that Forces has a ton of user reviews that seem to be overwhelmingly positive or on the better side of mixed over on Metacritic and elsewhere. I checked Steamspy and while Forces numbers are nothing to be proud of yet, sales of Forces have skyrocketed from around 4,000 to around 11,000 within the span of a day. I mean, look:

And of all the owners, 72.92% have actually played the game-- though on the flipside, players on average spend about 3 hours and 4 minutes playing Forces (around the time it takes to complete the campaign) and the amount of concurrent players (that is to say, people playing Forces at the same time) is dropping. Concurrent players dropping could happen for a variety of reasons-- coincidence, Forces attracts a very disparate audience with wildly different schedules, or the amount of players wanting to play it dropped. Frankly, with this game, all options are possible. I honestly don't know what to make of this.

But on the flipside, I am surprised that these reviewers haven't jumped on Youtube to talk about Forces, given how popular it is to discuss over there (Steamspy reports extremely healthy numbers for Youtube videos talking about the game). It'd make for good clicks (aka money and publicity) even if they don't really care that much about Sonic. If there's any place for a Forces audience to be built outside of Japan, it'd probably be Youtube-- though on the flipside, if there's any place for a Forces hatedom to be built, it'd also probably be Youtube.

I suppose this puts Sega and Sonic Team is a weird, though potentially helpful, position where they can't really rely on statistics alone for their decisions. They'll have to read reviews and extract what they say as opposed to doing the usual approach of checking the review scores and/or Metascore first. The last time all this weirdness-- critical apathy/disdain in contrast to fandom love, scores not exactly calling for 3D Sonic's head but also not exactly approving of every part-- happened was Sonic Unleashed, and that wound up allowing Colors to be a better game.

Yeah, I know Forces and Unleashed aren't entirely comparable. Unlike Unleashed's Werehog and story, critics actually seem to like (if not prefer to play as) the new Avatar character and have interest in the plot, and critics actually do seem to be getting better about pointing out the actual flaws of the game as opposed to memes or dismissiveness. Quite possibly because the lack of review copies means only professionals who care about Forces and 3D enough to analyze it will review it, allowing for much higher quality reviews than normal. Which gives me some hope that the criticisms will be answered.

As for the quality of the next game though, well, there's room for hope and room for worry. Hope in that Sonic Team is getting the right message and makes a Boost game that's basically Forces but without all the bad stuff (no Gens!Classic Sonic, more open levels, etc.), and that brings in elements of the Classic games in a positive way. Sonic Team, with the right staff and management, is very capable of doing this as well as willing to dive into the research needed to do it. Or get from reviews and interviews the much needed validation and encouragement to push for permission to work on original IPs and other Sonic Team franchises besides Sonic.

Worry in that Sonic Team could have Classic Sonic again because hey everybody loves Classic right? Sonic Team might well do the Avatar yet again, getting from reviews that the character was the best in the game and so not fixing its problems, not fixing its problems enough, or fixing the problems with other problems (see: Colors controls. Much less floaty and easier to control Sonic's speed than Unleashed, but it has its own issues with stiffness and air control). Actually, fixing problems with other problems is something Sonic Team is really prone to doing, so there's room for worry there. Or they could just make an entirely 2.5D game-- fine, at least from my perspective, but that's not really where 3D Sonic shines and we now have Headcannon to handle the side-scrolling aspects of Sonic (hey, I'm not a Mania gal but if Headcannon made a sequel to Sonic Rush, I'd totally buy it).

As for Forces marketing, yeah its been pretty terrible. I'm kind of used to it considering that basically almost every Sonic thing I've ever had interest in has had poor advertising and had to rely on word of mouth or Youtube to get publicity. But that's no excuse, really.

[TheRedRabbit]

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

It's even worse when I found after I posted that, that Mania has a total around one hundred and eight reviews in comparison

And it was a digital side-game

It's almost like the reviewers don't even care about mainline Sonic at this point... Can't blame them, but still, a new Sonic game should be a pretty big event...

 

What do you expect?  There was no buzz for it outside the community (all but two of my mates didn't even know that it was coming out till the Friday before) and SEGA deliberately withheld the review codes till release day, and looking at the basic spread of the scores it's not difficult to suss out why.  However you may feel about the quality of the content, this game was and continues to be treated like a live land mine by both sides.

[The Deleter]

7 minutes ago, Mad Convoy said:

Especially weird is that Forces has a ton of user reviews that seem to be overwhelmingly positive or on the better side of mixed over on Metacritic and elsewhere. I checked Steamspy and while Forces numbers are nothing to be proud of yet, sales of Forces have skyrocketed from around 4,000 to around 11,000 within the span of a day. I mean, look:

 

Ever since the quote of the first day sales only being 4,000, people have said that SteamSpy is inaccurate for the first few days allegedly, so I'm waiting before making a call on sales tbh. This is probably closer to the actual first day sales, though that isn't much, all the same :S

[Dr. Mechano]

34 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Wake up call? Doubt it. They will look to the fans having fun with this game on YouTube and the good praise from people like jim and PlayStation life style . At best we probably just won't see classic again

Mania sold and reviewed extremely well. Best-reviewed Sonic game in 15 years. Sega would have to be fools to not give us another classic game in light of its immaculate reception.

[Dejimon11]

1 hour ago, JaidynReiman said:

Not to mention its release date just over a week after Mario Odyssey not helping anything.

I would also add that Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon come out 10 days after Forces. It's really the worst position to be in. 

[Spooky Mulder]

At this point, do you think major sites like IGN and Gamespot that haven’t already posted reviews just won’t be reviewing the game?

[Blue Blood]

13 minutes ago, Super Mechanio said:

Mania sold and reviewed extremely well. Best-reviewed Sonic game in 15 years. Sega would have to be fools to not give us another classic game in light of its immaculate reception.

Ignoring the fact that SEGA are indeed fools, I think Meta was probably talking about Classic Sonic appearing as a separate character along Modern Sonic in another 3D entry 

[Dr. Mechano]

Just now, Blue Blood said:

Ignoring the fact that SEGA are indeed fools, I think Meta was probably talking about Classic Sonic appearing as a separate character along Modern Sonic in another 3D entry 

Oh. That's fine then.

Sonic Team can't do classic Sonic correctly anyway, so I'd just as soon they leave him out of their games and let someone competent (like Whitehead and company) have full reign over the classic gameplay.

[SonicLegends]

So I finished the game and gotta say I liked playing the avatar and Sonic stages unfortunately they are short (double boost was a dumb addition), but good god Classic Sonic played like garbage. I was wondering why people were having so much trouble with him when I saw live streams and it's because he feels like he's in a swamp like something is just dragging him down and even his spin dash if off too I noticed like man I actually wish he kept his one from Generations, like sure it was over powered but at least it managed to do the job, here it's just inconsistent.

Right at 2:13 below where I got the red ring and tried to do a spin dash to go up it didn't do the job, I had to do it quick, but it resulted sometimes instead of doing a spin dash it went into a immediate jump so this just absolutely annoyed me.

It's just wrong when you enjoy playing the 2D sections for the others that have some 3D, but for the one that is all 2D? How do you mess that up?

[TheRedRabbit]

9 minutes ago, Spooky Mulder said:

At this point, do you think major sites like IGN and Gamespot that haven’t already posted reviews just won’t be reviewing the game?

Would not shock me were that the case.  It's reviewed mixed-to-negative certainly but it's not the sort of Sonic Boom car crash to drive traffic.  I also wouldn't put it past either of them to avoid it after SEGA refusing to provide advance review codes.

[Meta77]

41 minutes ago, Super Mechanio said:

Mania sold and reviewed extremely well. Best-reviewed Sonic game in 15 years. Sega would have to be fools to not give us another classic game in light of its immaculate reception.

Not that classic. See this is why people should not jump off a bridge without understanding I meant classic in modern games. I msure well see another fan game made mania in a few long as tax is backing it it will do good.

28 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Ignoring the fact that SEGA are indeed fools, I think Meta was probably talking about Classic Sonic appearing as a separate character along Modern Sonic in another 3D entry 

Imma buy you a cake. lol

[Gabz Girl]

Big mistake from Sega to not release any review codes for critics before the games release. It seems like there’s apathy towards Sonic Forces. Only the fans and casuals care. 

We’ll have to wait until next week to see the sales results in Europe and next month (!) for the NPD in the US. It’s not looking good though, what with the lack of advertising and general lukewarm marketing that Sega has given Sonic Forces outside of Japan. 

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

1 hour ago, Penny said:

I think what he means by "stepping up their game to Mania's level of gameplay quality" is that he wants a 3D Sonic made with love, care, and effort by a developer who understands Sonic gameplay philosophy at more than just a basic level.

 

Ideally, that's what I'd want as well. At the very least, a 3D Sonic that has good level design and gameplay that isn't automated to hell and back would be nice. Anything of Generations quality or higher please.

We did get those.

And I know what he means

 

[dbzfan7]

What was that about when there was an interview about them wanting to make up for their past mistakes? Earn back fans trust? I want to see that interview again.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Fun fact.

Since Forces came out Sega Europe has not done any livestream of the game. They have however done lots of lots of livestream for the Forces companion app but none for the game itself.

They did however take a bunch of YouTube channel owners onto a roller coaster to play Sonic forces because Sonic goes fast and so do roller coasters, their words not mine.

Rollercoaster/10.

[Sonikko]

Sales figures on Steam so far. 3 days have passed so it should be accurate.

11/15k doesn't sound too hot lol. Mania sold 6 times that amount on the first day, 2 weeks delay and Denuvo meltdown included.