Sonic Forces Impressions Thread

[JaidynReiman]

16 hours ago, Stephenb19 said:

I'm not a big fan of the environment direction. Metropolis and the final area are pretty cool, but I don't like how the game takes the Sonic Adventure 2 approach of few environments, but many stages.

That's actually rather unfair to Adventure 2. This game has around 7 or so environments shared between 2-3 gameplay styles. There's Sonic, Avatar, Classic Sonic, and Sonic/Avatar, all part of 7 environments.

I don't mind the 7 environments, they basically act like worlds. I do wish there were more of them.

 

SA2, however, had a much larger variety--

Spoiler

 

Most environments are only shared between two characters at most. Here's all the environments present in SA2 I can think of:
- City (City Escape, Mission Street)
- Canyon (Wild Canyon, Dry Lagoon)
- Highway (Radical Highway, Mission Street)
- Prison (Prison Lane, Iron Gate, Security Hall; last one is a little debatable)
- Harbor (Metal Harbor, Weapons Bed)
- Jungle (Green Forest, White Jungle)
- Mountain (Pumpkin Hill, Sky Rail)
- Mines (Aquatic Mine)
- Desert (Hidden Base, Sand Ocean)
- Pyramid/Ruins (Pyramid Cave, Death Chamber, Egg Quarters)
- Space Station Interior (Eternal Engine, Crazy Gadget, Lost Colony, Canon's Core)
- Planetoids (Meteor Herd, Mad Space)
- Space Station Exterior (Final Rush, Cosmic Wall, Final Chase)
- Green Hill

 

There's a pretty distinct difference between Meteor Herd/Mad Space and Final Rush/Cosmic Wall/Final Chase. The previous two are on small planetoids with planetoid physics within the gravity range of the Space Colony Ark. Final Rush, Cosmic Wall, and Final Chase are all based on you dashing around the outskirts of the ARK itself, which you can't even reach from Meteor Herd/Mad Space, making those two more strictly Space levels than the others.

The ARK's interior stages are also way different from the Prison Island interior levels. Security Hall I found debatable including there and maybe it could go on its own, but felt it was close enough to count it.

Mission Street I included in City only because the beginning part features parts of the same City. Otherwise, its basically entirely on the same Highway Shadow runs through in Radical Highway.

 

In all honesty, I'd argue Adventure 2 has way more varied environments than Adventure. Adventure has a set number of stages, with 6 different characters visiting limited parts of them. And some look vastly different from others despite being in the same rough area (Crazy Gadget from Eternal Engine/Lost Colony, Pyramid Cave from Death Chamber/Egg Quarters, Cosmic Wall from Final Rush/Final Chase, Security Hall from Prison Lane/Iron Gate).

 

 

As for this game, I haven't beaten it yet, but so far its what I expected. I'm having fun and enjoying it, but its just nothing special.

[Shade Vortex]

You know what? I came into this game with very low expectations. Everything that I had seen or heard about the game made me less and less interested in it. And yet... when I actually sat down an played it? I could enjoy it. It baffles me, but I've come to the conclusion that it satisfies the simplistic side of me who just wants to do cool things, blast through enemies, and speed past everything in no time flat.

Mind you, I don't think this is a great game, but it's slightly above average. The levels are too short and linear for them to really make their impact big enough to care about most of them, but the bits and pieces of good ideas that are in each level could be expanded upon in a full-fledged stage.

I actually enjoy the avatar gameplay and concept the most ironically enough, with modern being my second favorite, but the Classic Sonic stuff can just go away. It's worse than in Generations and not particularly well designed. My standards for Classic are far too high in the wake of Mania for me to accept that portion of Forces' gameplay as anything but poorly-executed pandering.

I did like the concept of the story, but much like most of the game, the execution is sorely lacking.

If I were to rank this game it'd get a solid 6/10, just above average.

[TheOcelot]

Finished Ep Shadow. Got all trophies for this episode.

Positives:

- Shadow running "skating" animation looks great when he moves (reminds me of SA2).

- Playing as Shadow again is nice (even if his gameplay is just a re-skin of modern Sonic).

- Good to hear more Eggman dialogue. Eggman getting annoyed with Shadow is about the most interesting the story gets.

- Nice music remixs.

 

 Negatives:

- Pretty much just re-used levels, slightly tweaked. "Forces Super Hard mode".

- even for this small dlc the story is dreadful and makes little sense.

- same boring gameplay and stage design. Too much 2d.

- not worth going back to.

 

Playing Modern Sonic stages with Shadow is pretty cool.

 

My favorite avatar stage is "Imperial Tower (level 25), it's creative with the wisps, really feels like a Sonic Colors level. Just use the hover wisp for an easy S Rank. Also, I really like the vocal music for this level.

 

[SonikkuForever]

I just bought Forces and am about halfway through the storyline (if you can call it that). So far, I have one lingering question: how did Eggman "torture" Sonic while he was imprisoned for 6 months? Tickle him? Force him to play through Sonic 06? Make escargot with margarine instead of butter?

[Johnny Boy]

20 minutes ago, SonikkuForever said:

I just bought Forces and am about halfway through the storyline (if you can call it that). So far, I have one lingering question: how did Eggman "torture" Sonic while he was imprisoned for 6 months? Tickle him? Force him to play through Sonic 06? Make escargot with margarine instead of butter?

He probably forced sonic to watch every fast food restaurant that sells chili dogs get destroyed.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

I honestly wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that whole thing was a translation error

[pppp]

OK so I finished the game today. My thoughts are close to the general consensus: the plot is a big waste of potential that goes nowhere, the levels are shallow, the controls are crippled, god are the controls terrible and the OST is one of the weaker ones in years. As for what I liked: I have to admit Stage 24 did make me smile, while incredibly cheesy, it felt like it was the only stage that showed enthusiasm from the developers. I also still like some music tracks despite the overall package being weak.

One thing I'm surprised no one brings up is how this game is a different beast if you're trying to 100% it. I can see why some people like Jim Sterling found it alright. If you're just trying to get through the story and don't care for S Ranks or challenges it's a tolerable enough experience.

However, if you're like me and you were doing all missions and S Ranks as they became available, the control issues and other problems become much more apparent. Trying to quickly do precise platforming with these controls to beat the time trial challenges is a nightmare. Modern and the Avatar go from 0 to 1000 the moment you touch the control stick, good luck getting used to that, I never did.

Also can someone explain to me what the hell the programmer of the timer of the game was thinking? Even when you're in a setpiece where you have no control and are just watching the timer keeps counting. This makes time trial challenges incredibly unfair. For example a certain cutscene for a certain boss lasts like 20 seconds before you have control again, that's 20 seconds the game stole from your attempt at completing in x minutes.

It's a bad game plain and simple, it's not broken, but it's worst than that: It's a souless game where the developers just didn't give a shit.

[Razule]

15 hours ago, Shaddy the guy said:

I honestly wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that whole thing was a translation error

Are we just going to call every line we don't like a translation error..? 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Did I say it actually was a translation error? No, I said it wouldn't surprise me. Because mistranslations have completely fucked up parts of the story in this franchise multiple times (see: end of Shadow the hedgehog) and it doesn't line up one bit with anything we actually see, nor is it even mentioned afterward.

[StaticMania]

What about the "end of Shadow the Hedgehog"...?

[pppp]

10 hours ago, pppp said:

OK so I finished the game today. My thoughts are close to the general consensus: the plot is a big waste of potential that goes nowhere, the levels are shallow, the controls are crippled, god are the controls terrible and the OST is one of the weaker ones in years. As for what I liked: I have to admit Stage 24 did make me smile, while incredibly cheesy, it felt like it was the only stage that showed enthusiasm from the developers. I also still like some music tracks despite the overall package being weak.

One thing I'm surprised no one brings up is how this game is a different beast if you're trying to 100% it. I can see why some people like Jim Sterling found it alright. If you're just trying to get through the story and don't care for S Ranks or challenges it's a tolerable enough experience.

However, if you're like me and you were doing all missions and S Ranks as they became available, the control issues and other problems become much more apparent. Trying to quickly do precise platforming with these controls to beat the time trial challenges is a nightmare. Modern and the Avatar go from 0 to 1000 the moment you touch the control stick, good luck getting used to that, I never did.

Also can someone explain to me what the hell the programmer of the timer of the game was thinking? Even when you're in a setpiece where you have no control and are just watching the timer keeps counting. This makes time trial challenges incredibly unfair. For example a certain cutscene for a certain boss lasts like 20 seconds before you have control again, that's 20 seconds the game stole from your attempt at completing in x minutes.

It's a bad game plain and simple, it's not broken, but it's worst than that: It's a souless game where the developers just didn't give a shit.

Oh and another thing: Planning to 100% this game? Then prepare to repeat the same stages over and over to max out all Avatar classes for hours. Great replay value right guys?

[Shaddy Zaphod]

10 hours ago, StaticMania said:

What about the "end of Shadow the Hedgehog"...?

"We were wrong about him" from GUN at the end is supposed to refer to Shadow, not Gerald. The English version makes them forgive a man who tried to crash what was a essentially a meteor into the Earth. Shadow's own dialogue there also sort of suggests wanting to keep the Ark disaster from ever happening again, justifying his eventual joining GUN.

It doesn't save it from being the worst thing ever, but the localization mistakes just add an extra layer of "what the fuck" to the plot.

[Meta77]

1 hour ago, pppp said:

Oh and another thing: Planning to 100% this game? Then prepare to repeat the same stages over and over to max out all Avatar classes for hours. Great replay value right guys?

Yep just like a mmo where I run the same dungeon and fight the same voss 10 times to level up

 

So I've been replaying some staves and honestly I'm having a blast I love the avatar the more I play then I'm hoping in the future they go more in death with how you can customize them. I love my avi but having all the females flat as boards is odd sometimes

[pppp]

25 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Yep just like a mmo where I repeat the same dungeon and fight the same boss 10 times to level up.

Except in those games(good ones at least) there's variety in dungeons, making the task much more bearable. Every stage in Forces feels like the same affair.

[Meta77]

55 minutes ago, pppp said:

Except in those games(good ones at least) there's variety in dungeons, making the task much more bearable. Every stage in Forces feels like the same affair.

True, but many mmos dungeons while each different than the last  become a learned affair, you learn where bosses appear and what enemeies to expect such as FF or WOW where you eventually just rush a dungeon the fastest way possible to fight a boss with the same attacks for a chance at new gear or the same gear, rinse and repeat as neext Pso2 sort of changes it up by sometimes tossing some random boss on top of a boss you were expecting to add more thrill to getting to that latter boss you came to fight.

[Tyranno]

I've gotten three out of seven classes to three star honors just doing red rings and trying to s rank everything. It's not really that taxing, especially when you're using exp bonuses.

[JezMM]

I managed to do just under 5 out of 7 characters doing S ranks and collectibles.  I'm pretty confident finishing all Missions will do the last two no problem.

Also if 100%ing the game sounds tedious to you go 100% a different game.  Fairly straightforward.

[A_W]

3 hours ago, JezMM said:

Also if 100%ing the game sounds tedious to you go 100% a different game.  Fairly straightforward.

This sounds awfully close to "don't like it, don't play it". It's perfectly reasonable to point out and criticise the fact that a certain aspect of a game is worse or more tedious than its predecessors; nobody likes seeing the things they enjoy get worse. However, I might be biased here because I already witnessed my other favourite series fall victim to an absolutely terrible degree of artificial gameplay extension, and so have little patience for padding in general.

[JezMM]

5 hours ago, A_W said:

This sounds awfully close to "don't like it, don't play it". It's perfectly reasonable to point out and criticise the fact that a certain aspect of a game is worse or more tedious than its predecessors; nobody likes seeing the things they enjoy get worse. However, I might be biased here because I already witnessed my other favourite series fall victim to an absolutely terrible degree of artificial gameplay extension, and so have little patience for padding in general.

I mean the point is though 100%ing this game is only tedious if you don't enjoy the base gameplay to begin with.  It's flawed, and I mean VERY flawed, but I do enjoy the act of playing through the stages, so I haven't found it tedious at all.

And considering I've done 5/7 avatar types to rank 30 and I'm still not done with the content I'd be doing regardless of that achievement (missions, in this case), I'm yet to have to grind for the sake of grinding at all yet.

I just feel there's a significant difference between criticising artificial extension that gives you more to do after finishing the mandatory content.  If it had been something like "every 5 stages there's a gate where you have to be a certain rank to progress" I'd be totally on board with calling it artificial extension, but as is, not so much.

Hell to be honest I'm glad the achievement is there myself, because I don't indulge myself in character creator stuff much, I would've probably just used the one avatar from the beginning to 100% completion, but now that I'm deep into it, I'm glad the game forced me to make an avatar of each type to 100% it, since I ended up having fun designing them with all the stuff I unlocked over the course of getting all the collectibles/S-ranks and ranking up each one.

[A_W]

10 minutes ago, JezMM said:

I mean the point is though 100%ing this game is only tedious if you don't enjoy the base gameplay to begin with.  It's flawed, and I mean VERY flawed, but I do enjoy the act of playing through the stages, so I haven't found it tedious at all.

And considering I've done 5/7 avatar types to rank 30 and I'm still not done with the content I'd be doing regardless of that achievement (missions, in this case), I'm yet to have to grind for the sake of grinding at all yet.

Oh, I see. Apologies for misinterpreting your comment.

[Tara]

Spoilers in this post.  Don't read if you don't want the McSpoilers.

So after a long year of waiting, and being disappointed by some aspects and excited for others, I finally decided that I was just going to go ahead and watch the Forces cutscenes online, since I wasn't sure when I would be getting the game.  Bearing in mind, that I can't say anything for how the game controls, so I'll abstain from mentioning too much of that.  But I will say that it's probably a Mega Man X7 sort of situation.  By that I mean, the game looks fine.  Like, just watching a longplay on YouTube, it's hard to see where the problem lies.  Similar to how Mega Man X7 is a game that you have to actually pick up and play in order to perceive its many frustrating design choices.  I will say, though, that even if the controls were much tighter and better programmed, this would still probably be the first Sonic game I have ever just outright skipped due to lack of interest.  Maybe I'm just getting older, maybe I'm just not as much of a die-hard fan as I used to be, but I just can't bring myself to actually spend money on this game, especially when I'm not sure if it will even work on my PC and I have no idea when/if I'll be getting a new console.  The story of Sonic games have never been particularly good, but this one is as drab as they get, and the level design is visibly flawed.

The entire game can basically be summarized as abundant in buildup but lacking in resolution.  The story opens with Sonic attacked and apparently killed by the returning Zavok, Chaos, Shadow, and Metal Sonic as well as newcomer Infinite.  The game fast forwards to a few months later, and we find that the other characters have formed a resistance, and Knuckles exposits that Sonic is presumed gone and that having lost his best friend, Tails has "lost it."  Well, for someone who has "lost it," Tails seems perfectly fine next time we see him.  And the mission immediately following this cutscene reveals that Sonic is actually alive and well.  So, all that buildup and buzz about Sonic's apparent death, and it's undone before the start of the second stage.  The Phantom Ruby in itself, for all its mystique and tension built up since the release of Sonic Mania, is the epitome of a cop out device.  Its only purpose is to dismiss any interesting plot points.  Why are Zavok, Chaos, and Shadow back?  Why are they evil?  Well, you could have had an interesting story about them returning to their old ways after some kind of personal trauma or something... or you could say they're illusions created by the Phantom Ruby and have that mystery solved before it even starts.  So how are these classic villains defeated?  Off-screen, so I don't know.  They just are.

The avatar's backstory, though existing to make the concept of a custom character somewhat pointless, starts out interesting... but never actually goes anywhere.  Classic Sonic's return is almost completely inconsequential to the plot.  And Infinite is defeated in the most unceremonious of manners possible.  Adding to that, Episode Shadow, a supposed prologue that seeks to answer the questions not answered in the core game, actually raises more questions than it answers.  I'm actually less sure as to what Infinite is supposed to be than I was previously, even less sure about his motivations, and even less sure about who he even was as a character.  As a prologue, it does a very bad job of filling in the gaps.

And the gameplay?  Forget about it.  The level design is redundant, often relying on the same tropes from beginning to end.  The enemy placement is instrategic and lacks in variety, a property shared with Colors but to a much more noticeable extent here.  The levels end almost as soon as they start, and most levels don't have much in the way of an actual goal.  When you reach the end of the stage, there's no real feeling of having accomplished anything, because there's no conclusion to the level so much as just a stopping point.  Of course, I was only watching a longplay so the feeling could be different for someone who actually played it, but as I was watching, I noticed myself frequently being taken aback because I didn't know that was supposed to be the end of the level.

In terms of presentation, most of it is fairly solid, but god.  Most of the music is pretty weak.  There are some good tracks here and there, but most of them are either unmemorable or just a chore to listen to.  Classic Sonic has the worst of it. The actual instruments used more accurately capture the original sound quality of the Sega Genesis than something like Sonic 4, but are compositionally weak to put it mildly.  Even if they were made with more modern sounding synthesizers and real instruments, I doubt they would sound much better.  The sound design in general is also lacking, as there are many times a vocal theme's lyrics will be competing with the dialogue for center stage.  Sometimes the explosions will be so loud that they muffle the music in the stage.  It's really amateurish.  At best.

The good news is that it's not all bad.  The presentation and cinematics are lively and are a spectacle in their own right, although they don't last very long.  The use of colors and lighting are absolutely beautiful.  And even if the plot isn't very good, the actual characterization is top notch.  The return of cocky jackass Sonic is much appreciated.  Knuckles treats himself with a reasonable degree of seriousness, but isn't above being on the blunt end of a joke.  The user interface is visually pleasing and interesting to navigate.  The avatar stages, while not by any means functional or well-designed, do provide some interesting variation and encourage exploration and experimentation with different Wispons.

And the voice acting.  While not all of it is great (in particular, Rouge sounds a little bit ill-fitted to her role, and Charmy sounds extremely sedated, which to be honest is an improvement though maybe not what they were going for), there were moments where I began to think we were back in the days of Ryan Drummond, et. al.  Not that the Dreamcast era cast where without their faults, but what I mean is that they were released during a time when I didn't think of that.  And of all the problems in this game, I rarely found myself examining the quality of a line reading because the voice work is surprisingly phenomenal.

Unfortunately, none of these shining points are enough to outweigh the massive amounts of problems.  Again, since I haven't actually played the game, I can't say anything on the controls.  But I've been hearing some people say it's as bad as '06 or Rise of Lyric and... I'm not sure if I'd go that far.  '06 had a story that actively frustrated me with its silly concepts and poor characterization, Rise of Lyric had a story that had a lot of thought put into it but not a lot of focus (resulting in a lot of plot points coming and going in the drop of a hat), but Forces is a story that I feel builds up, hoping to sucker you into it and then resolves itself with very little user input and very little in the way of drama or struggle.  It's a game that was designed to sell, not to entertain.  And I guess that's why I just can't be bothered to actually pick it up for myself.  There is very little in this game that makes me want to care.  Almost nothing that I subscribe to the series for is present in this title.

I've been with Sonic through some of his lowest points in history.  I've been here for Shadow, for '06, for Boom.  All the little disasters that cause nasty flame wars and vitriol, inside and outside the fanbase.  And even as horrible as the games became, I still enjoyed picking them apart and examining why they didn't work and how they could have been improved.  Bad games can be fun.  And since I'm not a "hardcore" gamer, I normally don't have a problem with mediocre gameplay.  I mean, I like Lost World, despite it being pretty mixed in terms of reception.  But this game leaves me feeling absolutely nothing.  Nothing that makes me think "I want to experiment with this" or "I want to examine this" or anything.  It just feels drab, redundant, and empty.  It's certainly not the worst looking game, but it certainly is the least interested I've ever been in a Sonic game.  I'm glad that there are some people who can find enjoyment out of it, and for those that don't, hopefully you can at least have fun picking it apart and laughing at it.  But my money will be going elsewhere.

tl;dr it's not good.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Little update on my thought: I'm still playing the game, so it can't be that bad. i repeat my previous comparison: it's old bag of chips kind of fun. A bit low shelf and when you think about it's flawed, but still counts as 'fun'. I'm enjoying myself collecting S-ranks, red rings and new clothes for my Avatars. With that said it's a shame I found new things I don't like about this game.

1 Quick Time Events are never good, but in Sonic? When I'm trying for a 3rd time to get a S-rank, watching that dumb snake or space ships again and again really get's on my nerve. The fact that I can't play Shadow in those levels (and team-levels) is extra kick in the crouch.

2 Getting S-ranks in Shadow Bonus was probably the hardest... which is the moment I noticed Daily Bonus. You know, you do some pathetically easy task and you get XP bonus for 30 minutes? It would be nice for getting medals faster, but it also multiplies your score. So I can die twice in a stage, loose all my rings and waste some time with number rings and still get S-rank.

[Baconjack]

I'd hate to bump a thread, but I finally managed to complete the game just now. In the last month I've owned Forces, school and exams have kicked my ass and I've only been able to get a few nights to finish the game just recently.

 

Positives:

• Very pretty looking game. Sonic Team would never fail on this regard, pretty much every Sonic game since Adventure has had great visuals.
• Story is better than any other Sonic game in the last 7 years, but that isn't saying much.
• The character creation has a wide diverse range of thing to choose from. Had a good time attempting to make Coldsteel, but to not much success.
• Great music. Need I say any more? It's a Sonic game. (although pretty much every Classic song except Ghost Town gave me a headache)
• Avatar's gameplay and levels are where this game shines. Decently long, but are overly dependent on the wispons. Press RT with the fire wispon and you could fly through these levels.

Negatives:

• The physics of Classic Sonic's levels were strange. The levels were very slow. It felt like they were a chore to play through.
• Why is the drift gone?
• Modern Sonic's levels are way too short. All of them took less than 2 minutes to complete, and the levels were extremely linear, and dependent on the boost mechanic. The Mystic Jungle level was the worst offender.
• Short game. Took me about 3 hours to complete the campaign + Episode Shadow.

Overall, the game is a good effort, but it is very dry and shallow. While it is the weakest of the Boost games, it is much better than Heroes, Lost World, and of course '06 and Rise of Lyric.