Sonic 2017

[Frieza2000]

The writing is astonishingly bad. Not Heroes-era sort of bad, just really incompetent storytelling. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first because Pontac, while I hate his treatment of the characters and setting, has always shown basic literary proficiency. The credits held the answer: the first name that appears under writers is Makoto Goya. Pontac and Graff are listed as "writers, English story and script," so maybe they were just stuck doing localization.

Given its daring premise, I'm honestly stunned at how boring the plot is. It's probably 80% padding. The pacing is awful. I suspect Iizuka's meddling is partially to blame. Having to come up with an excuse to have you visit the same levels 3 times each clearly hindered them.

Observations:

-The fact that Episode Shadow, an integral part of the story (I'd recommend playing it before the main game), was delivered as DLC with almost no cutscenes suggests to me that they were behind schedule and over budget, unsure whether or not they'd be able to finish everything.
-This is the Sonic 4 of 3D Sonic games, both in terms of level design and physics. In all sincerity, Sonic 06 is probably more fun.
-Infinite is lame.
-The Phantom Ruby is lame.
-There's more drivel about the real super power of teamwork in this game than Heroes.
-Silver's presence is never explained, so I guess he's been retconned into a regular character. With TK powers.
-The inexplicable lack of Chaos Emeralds started to become really pronounced right about when Eggman tried to crash the sun into the Earth. Yes, really.
-There are only two positives I can think of: the backgrounds are gorgeous and Knuckles was not a retard.

This game is such a nonentity that I can't see myself remembering it two years from now. But were a lot of people hyped for it (this is the first time I've watched a playthrough of a Sonic game since Unleashed, so they obviously did their marketing right), so my fear is that it'll either sell or review moderately well rather than being taken out back and shot like it deserves.

So...does that mean Sonic Mania was just an illusion? Or parts of it? Also, great continuity with Tails being completely helpless against some basic badniks. Maybe the Adventure games are in the same alternate dimension as classic Sonic. I'm okay with that.

Yeah, I'm guessing we never left Angel Island. The rest of the settings were illusions. Also, the fact that Eggman conquered 99.9% of the world in 6 months suggests that not only Tails but the rest of the gang combined are totally helpless without Sonic.

Gotta say, Forces's story is meh but I increasingly love the Phantom Ruby as a story element. It really does contrast nicely with the Chaos Emeralds as an "antagonistic" magic rock. Plus, it fits Eggman and how he often relies on displays of power rather than actually exercising power to get what he wants.

Based on the fact that there were prototypes, giant versions of it in his base, and it required an external power source, my impression was that it was something Eggman created, like Tails's fake Chaos Emerald, not a new gem of power. The only thing that suggests otherwise is that he was analyzing it in Episode Shadow, but that was probably just him testing the latest prototype or "tuning" it, as Infinite alluded to. My problem with this is that there's no reason he can't just make another one tomorrow, so he effectively has the power to bend reality whenever he feels like it now.

[Wombatwarlord777]

That's a good opening salvo against this game. A few things...

The writing is astonishingly bad. Not Heroes-era sort of bad, just really incompetent storytelling. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first because Pontac, while I hate his treatment of the characters and setting, has always shown basic literary proficiency. The credits held the answer: the first name that appears under writers is Makoto Goya. Pontac and Graff are listed as "writers, English story and script," so maybe they were just stuck doing localization.

Yeah, this story really is kind of a throwback to the rather involved, varyingly convoluted, and often not watertight plots of the 1999 to 2008 3D Sonic games (maybe sans Heroes and probably Unleashed). The best of these plots are exciting and give just enough lore to feel like there's an actual world that you can affect, but it's clear Sonic Team is rather out of shape here.

Having to come up with an excuse to have you visit the same levels 3 times each clearly hindered them.

I'm somewhat willing to forgive them here, at least from an aesthetic perspective, given that Sonic Adventure 2 basically did the same thing (with an extra level trope or two, to be honest). But they really could have at least set some levels at different times of day (which SA2 does). Also, the Chemical Plant- and Eggman's Base-level themes feel incredibly similar, given that they're both drab-colored industrial wastelands. The selection of themes in Forces really does come across as ultimately narrow. Not the sort of world-engrossing quest we were sold.

The fact that Episode Shadow, an integral part of the story (I'd recommend playing it before the main game), was delivered as DLC with almost no cutscenes suggests to me that they were behind schedule and over budget, unsure whether or not they'd be able to finish everything.

More than anything, this is one game aside from Sonic '06 we're it's most apparent that Sonic Team was up against external limits that they couldn't quite overcome. I mean, even '06 didn't use fucking interstitial cards to convey major plot points. One of the biggest twists in that game was that Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were tricked and thrown into the future. This is all conveyed via cutscenes.

You can probably explain away the budgetary issues Sonic Team was facing, but the fact they had 4 years to make the game is harder to justify given the quality of the final product. Did they really spend a lot of time developing the Hedgehog Engine 2? Maybe they did.

This is the Sonic 4 of 3D Sonic games, both in terms of level design and physics. In all sincerity, Sonic 06 is probably more fun.

Honestly, Sonic Forces is probably an ultimately average game, but it feels so disappointing, probably because we were really hoping for a strong return to form after Rise of Lyric, and because we can immediately compare this game to Sonics Unleashed, Colors, and Generations. Sequels, at least gameplay-wise, are supposed to improve upon things. Largely due to middling and bland level design, Sonic Forces feels worse.

-Infinite is lame.
-The Phantom Ruby is lame.

Infinite and his relationship to the Phantom Ruby is one of the stronger aspects of the (ultimately still weak, mind you) story. Like Shadow in SA2, there's ambiguity surrounding him that makes it fun to think about him. Even after all four prequel comics she'd more light on his origins, there's still the question of whether or not Infinite used the Phantom Ruby merely to get stronger, or if he needs its belief-fueled powers to keep himself alive, being fatally killed otherwise when Shadow attacked him. The fact that he dissolves into mist after his final boss fight and grows weaker in the vicinity of prototype Rubies kind of support the latter possibility, but either way is fairly compelling and meshes well with his personality.

There are only two positives I can think of: ... Knuckles was not a retard.

I know this isn't your point exactly, but it would have been more appropriate and touching if Tails were the one leading the resistance.

[Wooduck51]

I have not had time to watch all of the game (I am always about a year or two behind the current console generation) but I watched episode Shadow, and am I the only one who thinks that the quality a choreography of the game engine cutscenes somehow are getting worse since SA2? Somehow everything seems weirdly slow, and the gravity and weight of the characters are off? I mean Shadow beating on infinite seemed moderately ok, but especially when infinite beats on Sonic, it just seems stiff? Also The entire Sonic meeting Ifinite scene feels like they just resused Sonic meeting Shadow from SA2, except that tails yells he is faster than Sonic instead of Sonic thinking it.

On the other hand I am very happy Knuckles is back to being hotheaded but competent, I was listening to ghost pumpkin soup or what have you, but I realized how much I miss that characterization of him. Also the character creator is a cup that runneth over, and maye the one thing that warrants a used buy for me.

Also, as the general plot (eggman captures sonic and takes over the world) was not a bad Idea, I was thinking how much better it would be if the game had started with the opening of Sonic Unleashed, (minus turning into a were-hog and the gaias's and probably the planet shattering) and Infinite wasn't in it.

[Majestic Joey]

Just beat the main game (haven't played shadow yet). This game was a major disappointment. It's a major step backwards from sonic generations. For one, the controls feel like they have gotten worse. I was struggling just to land on certain platforms with all the playable characters. Also this game is gorgeous looking, the music is awesome as well but there was no moments in this game where I was like "holy shit". What I mean by that is the first time I played rooftop run in Sonic Unleashed I was blown away by how cool some of the speed sections were. This game everything felt super bland.

I've been reading comments from people saying that Sonic Team should close up and get a new team or they should get Whitehead to do make new games. Frankly, I'm starting to agree with that sentiment. Sonic Forces had been in development for more than 3 years. It should have been way better. The fan game, Sonic Utopia, shits all over forces in terms of quality.

I don't know. I'm really disappointed with this game. I think I'll go play more Mania. Just got one more achievement left to get (its the all gold medals on blue sphere trophy so that may take awhile...).

I did like the part where Modern Sonic met up with classic Sonic. Modern Sonic says, "It's been generations since I've seen you."

[Jingles]

Do you get anything for collecting all the red rings? I thought that there might be some extra content considering the game ends with 00.01% of the world still belonging to Eggman, but it doesn't seem like there is.

By the way, I really liked the game! But I thought the previous 3D boost games were just awful, so take my opinion with a grain of salt and a cup of apprehension.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I've been reading comments from people saying that Sonic Team should close up and get a new team or they should get Whitehead to do make new games. Frankly, I'm starting to agree with that sentiment.

I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, I think the series in general needs a major paradigm shift from SPEEDSPEEDSPEEDSPEEDSPEED to Freedom, with that entailing excellent, responsive, and intuitive controls, Sonic's speed knocked down to the point that the player can reasonably react to upcoming obstacles, and the ability to traverse interesting environments in a variety of ways. Sonic Utopia happens to be pretty much what I'm trying to describe. The closest we got to this vision was under Naka's (ostensive) reign of Sonic Team, and I don't know if Iizuka is necessarily capable, willing, or able given his limited resources to make such a game.

On the other hand, for all the shit we give Iizuka, there has been a lot good stuff at least approved under his watch, including Sonic Mania (which, if I recall, he personally oversaw, meaning he was away from Forces's production for quite an extended period of time).

If he and the rest of the team are to stay, they really need to take two things to heart. First, they need to prioritize gameplay, controls, and level design above all else. Sonic Team has always loved spectacle, flashy graphics, and (largely automated) set pieces, but if working on that means the core game is less than ideal, then that is were you should not be allocating your time. Kill your darlings, and all that. Second, they need to build up a stable of talent that they can depend on. Sonic Forces has three level designers, the lead of which worked on previous Sonic games. The two working under them are completely new. Sonic Team really needed to hire more level designers and hire them from the pool of people that previously worked on Unleashed, Colors, and / or Generations. Granted, it has been more than five years since Generations and most of them I'm sure have moved on to other things. But then you get back to the question how you allocate your resources. For a game like Sonic Forces, you should be allocating your resources to bringing back proven talent.

I don't know. I'm really disappointed with this game. I think I'll go play more Mania. Just got one more achievement left to get (its the all gold medals on blue sphere trophy so that may take awhile...).

Good luck, man! A couple of those bonus stages get pretty danged gnarly.

By the way, I really liked the game! But I thought the previous 3D boost games were just awful, so take my opinion with a grain of salt and a cup of apprehension.

That's interesting, this game really seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it sort of thing that averages out to a meh. What did you like about it?

[Locit]

God damn it all I wanted was Sonic Generations on the Switch.

Can I just have Sonic Generations on the Switch please?

[Jingles]

What did you like about it?

Quite a few things!

I loved how open the level design was, especially in 3D. It always made me want to go back and see what I missed the first time around, and it helps that every level looks absolutely gorgeous. There was never a point where I didn't want to play any of the different character modes. I'm also glad the levels are very short, but plentiful - that's the right way to do it over a handful of 06-length stages, I think.

The refinements made to the boost system were much appreciated, especially how boosting in the air now works - it's a great combination of Adventure and Unleashed's physics engines. There are some points where you can just skip massive portions of the levels by simply boosting over them, and you're rewarding for doing so with the time bonus at the end.

The scoring system was superb. I've never been an advocate for not using a lives system, but end-of-level bonuses for as few retries as possible is a really compelling replacement. I guess the daily multipliers are a tad gimmicky, but I think they're harmless.

I'm actually not a huge fan of character creation in general, so I was glad the game didn't really push it that much - there's never a point where you need to upgrade your wispons or whatever, but the options are certainly there if you choose to. I did fill a bit gypped for picking the bird at first, though... the double jump isn't very useful.

The boss fights were neat! I can remember each of them well, and I appreciated that, once you understand them, you can dispose of them quickly (which, might I add, is a quality a certain other Sonic game released this year lacked).

The Shadow levels were neat, and aside from maybe Stage 2 they felt pretty different from the main game, in terms of "flow" and airgame prioritization. Didn't like that there wasn't a boss fight, though!

To be fair, I did go in with very low expectations, but I genuinely enjoyed the game a ton and will certainly be going back to it to hunt for collectables and S-Ranks. I can certainly understand why it's been getting thrashed by a lot of people, and I see a lot of opinions I agree with even in this thread, but I had plenty of fun. I probably just have bad taste or something.

[Malchik]

Why do you people still invest in this franchise? I mean, Mania was the exception, but you knew this game was going to be shit and by buying it you are only supporting Sonic Team's bad, bad decision making.

[Majestic Joey]

Anybody feel like the levels were too short? I felt like the level was over before I could get involved.

[Frieza2000]

Why do you people still invest in this franchise? I mean, Mania was the exception, but you knew this game was going to be shit and by buying it you are only supporting Sonic Team's bad, bad decision making.

Only two people so far have said they actually played the game, and one of them actually liked it. But I admittedly got Sonic Cycled here. I thought it was sure to be garbage up until the Infinite trailer, then I was expecting it to be a fairly polished boost game that I was still going to end up hating, but psych! Unfinished mess! I'm pretty convinced now that the current team is incapable of producing something I'll enjoy.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this is the first game since 06 to ship with a bad take from a VA in the final game. There's an in-level clip where Sonic says a word twice; I don't remember which. The acting in general sounded like they didn't know the context of the lines they were reading. They probably got 1 take and minimal direction. And remember that sandworm they drew attention to in GHZ? Shouldn't that have been a boss at some point? Or mentioned ever again? I get the feeling there was a lot of cut content on this one.

I also looked up who Makoto Goya is. The only other narrative gig to his credit is co-writer of "I Am Setsuna," which had only been released a few months before the Forces trailer came out (and presumably he was hired before that, so Sonic Team hadn't seen it), and the scenario of an old Xbox fighting game. So it looks like Sonic Team hired a writer with basically no relevant experience, or at least none that's been worth publicizing. Why not Pontac? Was he too expensive? Has Iizuka developed a distaste for his style? Was it not believed he was capable of a darker, more dramatic story?

I'm somewhat willing to forgive them here, at least from an aesthetic perspective, given that Sonic Adventure 2 basically did the same thing (with an extra level trope or two, to be honest).

SA2 not only managed to make most of the levels feel distinct through atmosphere and level gimmicks, it also kept the plot moving. I mean, yes, there was filler, like the entire sequence where Rouge and Shadow chase after Tails, or most of Knuckles's stages, but they were used as downbeats to give you a moment of rest between the major plot beats and they had variety. How many levels in Forces are literally just "Eggman is attacking blah! Go destroy robots in blah!" Why not a recon mission? Or sabotaging a power plant? Or a supply run on a weapons factor? A bombing run on an AA battery so we can gain air superiority, or a commando mission on an airship that's annihilating our ground forces? There are quite a number of stock missions to send a group of guerilla fighters on that don't require any creativity!

Infinite and his relationship to the Phantom Ruby is one of the stronger aspects of the (ultimately still weak, mind you) story. Like Shadow in SA2, there's ambiguity surrounding him that makes it fun to think about him.

Really? I thought it was pretty straightforward. He was a mercenary who got humiliated by Shadow and begged Eggman to make him stronger, so he became the Guinea pig for the ruby experiments. I saw no indication that he was seriously wounded.

I didn't realize the comics kept going. Looks like they attempt to rationalize Silver's appearance, but they're probably about as canon as any Archie adaptation. I do appreciate them giving me a better idea of what animal Infinite is, though. ("Jackal Squad" didn't really click for me in the cutscene and you never see his damn face in the game)

am I the only one who thinks that the quality a choreography of the game engine cutscenes somehow are getting worse since SA2? Somehow everything seems weirdly slow, and the gravity and weight of the characters are off? I mean Shadow beating on infinite seemed moderately ok, but especially when infinite beats on Sonic, it just seems stiff? Also The entire Sonic meeting Infinite scene feels like they just reused Sonic meeting Shadow from SA2, except that tails yells he is faster than Sonic instead of Sonic thinking it.

More than that, the cinematography was really head scratching at times. In fact, Sonic's "death" scene was the first thing that threw me off. I didn't even understand what had happened until halfway through the next scene. What should've been one of the game's most powerful moments ended up being one of its worst.

On the other hand, for all the shit we give Iizuka, there has been a lot good stuff at least approved under his watch, including Sonic Mania (which, if I recall, he personally oversaw, meaning he was away from Forces's production for quite an extended period of time).

Iizuka was the guy who saw Mania as an advertisement for Forces. He's (presumably) the one who gave them a low budget, forced them to make most of the levels Genesis rehashes, wouldn't let them include Super Emeralds, Fang, and who knows what else they wanted to do, and either obliviously or delusionally refused to believe that it was going to be a huge success until the moment he was presented with the sales figures. I'm certain that without his meddling it would've been a SUBSTANTIALLY better game. I feel sorry for the man and would not want his job, but as far as the franchise is concerned Iizuka can go burn.

[Jingles]

Relegating Infinite's backstory to DLC and a tie-in comic exclusive to Twitter was an absolutely boneheaded decision that should not have been made. I didn't even know about the fourth comic up until I was looking at the Forces TVTropes page, and assumed that Infinite was some artificial lifeform that Eggman cooked up with the Phantom Ruby.

The writers did absolutely nothing with the whole "resistance" angle. As far as the gameplay is concerned, there are exactly three characters (both Sonics and the Avatar) fighting against Eggman. You only come into contact with other Forces members during the arguably non-canon blue SOS missions, and they don't actually do anything besides get rescued. The only time you even see other members are in a few dialogue boxes and a cutscene near the end! If they had just called this game "Sonic: Eggman Took Over the World", it would have been a lot easier to write around.

you knew this game was going to be shit and by buying it you are only supporting Sonic Team's bad, bad decision making.

For the record, I didn't think that at all! And I did enjoy the game, even with all its shortcomings. The story is a mess, and a lot of the music blows, but I absolutely had a lot of fun.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this is the first game since 06 to ship with a bad take from a VA in the final game. There's an in-level clip where Sonic says a word twice; I don't remember which.

Silver's VA stumbled on a line, too, during one of the pre-level debriefings. I can't remember the exact moment, but there's a point where he stops in the middle of a sentence, pauses for a moment, then starts up again.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I'm up to the twelfth stage of the game, and gaawd am I not having a good time.

The controls and physics are the two worst things. Acceleration is way too quick and unintuitively bumps up significantly after you get going a bit, at least as Modern Sonic. Jumps are really stiff, and as Sonic it's basically impossible to orient yourself in midair to change which thing you want to Homing Attack. I honestly thought that Modern Sonic felt best when his speed was capped for the Zavok boss fight. Otherwise, Sonic stages really feel like glorified QTEs this time around.

The Avatar is a bit better. It's fun to mow down enemies with the Flame Wispon, but that appeal wears thin as you slaughter formation after formation of stationary foes. One thing that does please me somewhat is that the Wisps can grant you access to unique paths and caches again, though not at all to the extent of Sonic Colors. But I don't like the fact that it's easy to zoom past Wisps in 3D, and that if you liberate Wisps that don't match your current Wispon, you're S.O.L.

Classic Sonic is the same booger with the gimped jump he was in Generations, but here the issue is that the level design is incredibly unremarkable (unlike Generations) and comes across as incredibly amateurish at times. So your reward for keeping to the upwards path is a solid 15 by 4 rectangle of rings? This overly-long bridge is guarded by 50 Chompers that jump up sequentially? This is Baby's First Sonic Level Design-grade material.

Aesthetically, the game is great. I will say the environments are beautiful (even if they actually get in the way of gameplay sometimes; The platform on which you battle Zavok has an annoyingly realistic shiny glint to it), and there is some attempts at variety to the seven level tropes the game has. The music really isn't my cup of tea, but it's ultimately fine. But the actual gameplay itself only ranges from banal to actively frustrating.

I didn't realize the comics kept going. Looks like they attempt to rationalize Silver's appearance, but they're probably about as canon as any Archie adaptation.

Having the comics' backstory in-game would have been preferable, but as supplemental material they were fine. The only thing that the comics sort of half-assed was Knuckles's reason for appointing himself leader of the resistance.

Why do you people still invest in this franchise?

At this point? Mania 2.

[Crazy Penguin]

Relegating Infinite's backstory to DLC and a tie-in comic exclusive to Twitter was an absolutely boneheaded decision that should not have been made. I didn't even know about the fourth comic up until I was looking at the Forces TVTropes page, and assumed that Infinite was some artificial lifeform that Eggman cooked up with the Phantom Ruby.

It's all a result of the game obviously being rushed out the door.

If you look at the core game, Infinite is heavily implied to be one of Eggman's creations (particularly in the opening cut-scene). He seemingly exists only to serve Eggman and doesn't have any "humanity" to his personality. There's even dialogue in one of the later levels where Sonic and Amy talk about how the lab they're in must have been where Infinite was born. But Episode Shadow and the comics establish that he was an ordinary animal with "human" emotions who Eggman powered up with the Phantom Ruby. I prefer the latter take, since Eggman is a roboticist and not a biologist, but it was clearly retconned in late into development and they didn't have the time and/or inclination to remove the parts that didn't jibe with Infinite's new origin.

Similarly, the core game implies that the Phantom Ruby was entirely Eggman's creation, along with several prototypes. But the prequel comics have Eggman discovering the Phantom Ruby. The latter makes more sense with what was established in Sonic Mania, but it raises several questions. Is it the same Phantom Ruby from the Sonic Mania dimension? If so, why did it arrive in the Sonic Forces dimension months before Classic Sonic did? What was the purpose of the prototypes? What happened to the original Phantom Ruby, was that the one embedded in Infinite?

Another change is that the first level in the game was clearly designed to take place after Eggman's take-over, with half of Green Hill withered and destroyed and a mix of active and wrecked Death Egg Robots. The last part is the most telling. Who destroyed the Death Egg Robots? Sonic wasn't on the scene yet, the war hadn't begun and the Resistance didn't exist. In Classic Sonic's Green Hill level (6 months later), Tails is surprised that Green Hill is sandy. Also, Green Hill was supposed to be a Resistance location, which doesn't make sense if it was the first place Eggman attacked. There was a leak online last year saying that the first level of the game starred the avatar character, so this change must have been made very late in development.

And I'm pretty sure it wasn't part of the initial plan to have Fake Chaos and Fake Shadow casually disposed of in early game cut-scenes.

My theory is that this game began as Sonic Generations 2 (or "Sonic Dimensions", whatever), with Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic and Boom Sonic. Then Rise of Lyric ended up being a very high-profile critical and commercial flop, so they dropped Boom Sonic and replaced him with the Avatar idea (which is why he/she is taller, uses the "enerbeam" style grappling hook and fights a Lyric-like final boss). At that point the idea was for the Avatar to be the focal point of the game. Then there was probably pressure from upper management and/or Sega America/Europe to re-emphasise Sonic himself as the main protagonist rather than the Avatar.

Whatever the case, it was definitely a very troubled development without enough time/talent/money behind it. Talent perhaps being the most important part, because there's no excuse for the wonky acceleration and poor jump/midair control.

The Avatar customisation is surprisingly versatile though! A little weird that there's no "legwear" option, only bodysuit, but it's definitely the most polished part of the game.

[Locit]

Welp, I just died for the seventh time on this stupid OTC stage and I've fucking had it. Sonic Forces is Sonic Generations with a pointless faux-Sonic third grafted on, substantially worse controls and crummier stage design. It's not even a hot mess. It's just a regular old mess.

I'm kind of shocked at how much the controls for both Sonics have deteriorated compared to Generations. All Sonic Team had to do was tighten a few things up and they could've gotten away with reusing all those SG assets. But playing through those rehash stages with much looser controls just highlights how shoddy this game really is. Even the side-step mechanic for modern Sonic doesn't snap to the lines of rings laid out along the tracks anymore--why would they drop that?

And the stage design is way less forgiving, which is made all the worse by the same-y color schemes that make it remarkably difficult to tell where your character is or discern foreground elements (including enemies!) from the background.

Basically Sonic Forces is a sign that Sonic Team hasn't really learned anything despite having developed two games - Generations and Colors - that had really solid, fun takes on the modern Sonic concept they'd hit upon with Unleashed. It's like they don't have confidence in the modern-style gameplay to hold up on its own, even though it did exactly that in Colors which, looking back, may be the best non-Mania Sonic game of the last decade.

Basically I picked this up out of curiosity expecting a slightly less polished Generations and got a hot pile of frustration dumped on my lap. What a waste.

[Wombatwarlord777]

Yeah, that's actually a good question: Why on Earth did they ever bother to mess with Generation's already decent physics? I mean, Megaman's basically had the same physics for ten games and nobody's complaining about that. Did they think they were making them better? The fact that you actually gain momentum if Classic Sonic is spinning down a ramp is one improvement, but it's a pity they made his run and jump worse in the process.

One other thing I can't believe they got rid of is Modern Sonic's drift. That's one move that allowed 3D Modern Sonic segments in Generations and Colors to have any sort of complexity, rendering his stages in Forces even more of a series of uniformally flat and narrow hallways. And the one time you'd actually need it in Metropolitan Highway, it isn't available and so you're forced to slow to a crawl or awkwardly homing attack those weird emu robots.

[Jingles]

The 2D sections of Modern Sonic levels have gotten really, really bad. Sonic cannot precision platform with these controls, and having an entire gamemode dedicated to classic 2D platforming makes them even more redundant. This was a problem in Lost World, too, so it's obviously not just the Forces team's fault.

Forces has exactly 1 level that's entirely 3D, which I think is a first for the Boost era. It's a good level to actually play, but it's short. If they wanted to pad out Modern Sonic stages, they should have just cut out all the side crap (no one would have missed Classic Sonic) and used that effort to extend the 3D segments. There are a few moments in the "Partner" levels where you're in a pretty open space and have a plethora of pathways to take - why couldn't Sonic's level design be like that?

[Wooduck51]

So I watched all the cutscenes, and between level, and in level chatter a while ago; but just yesterday it dawned on me that it would have been so much better (and a nice nod to sonic-past, and thr legends that have grown around it) if instead of the whole Infinite character, the Tails doll had been the creature with the phantom ruby. The more I think about it the better it gets; the whole way the player characters get drawn into the messed up illusion world when they touch the red cubes of whatever, the whole reality bending thing, the chest burster bot at the end, all of it would fit right into the mythos built around the Tails doll. Just as an example, imagine the first cutscene where sonic meets infinite, but with the Tails doll instead. Sonic shows up to all the animals cowering in fear, and he can see no reason why, but as soon as he jumps at the tails doll then everything shifts into the reddish colored ruby world, and the tails doll changes into a black shadow creature, or heck, in the ruby reality it could turn into Infinite, beats up sonic ( or uses eldritch powers to beat him up) and then once sonic is beaten up everything switches back to the regular world, with eggman and thte tails doll just hanging out as Sonic is defeated. Same with the infinte boss fights, but instead you have the tails doll limply floating away until you touch the red cubes, and then bam, crazy town.

And regarding gameplay; the levels (at least to watch) seem like the endless parade of automatic levels that plague Mario Maker, which is to say, pretty but boring.

[Frieza2000]

If they had embraced the fanfic nature of the plot and gone full parody with it, all of the game's technical flaws would be forgiven (if not incorporated as an intentional part of the parody). Tails Doll, Sonic.exe, motorcycles and more realistic guns for the avatar, main characters dying left and right, DBZ powers, a Mass Effect style relationship subgame between the avatar and every character including Eggman, callbacks to Sonic 06, Big's Big Fishing, maybe a Drano reference.

Also, Penguin probably nailed it. Everything about the game screams development hell. Maybe that's why they changed writers; Pontac wrote the Sonic Dimensions version, but once that was scrapped and he was charged with writing something new that revolved around existing levels and assets he realized it was going to turn into another Sonic Boom and told them he didn't want his name on it.

I'm surprised how many people I know genuinely enjoyed this game. I think the main thing that kept it from becoming another Sonic Boom was that Sonic Team lucked out and happened to have a passable engine when the deadline hit, but it's possible that they've finally learned how to see these trainwrecks coming early enough to slap a convincing coat of paint on before release.

[Jingles]

I highly doubt Forces will be remembered as an ‘06 or Boom-tier failure, mostly because it already isn’t. Yes, the story blows, only a few levels are any fun, and there’s so much redundancy in every aspect of the game it’s unbelievable, but nothing is broken. Historians will look upon it the same way they do games like Sonic Unleashed or Sonic Lost World - deeply flawed in premise and execution, but far from the bottom of the barrel.

[big_smile]

So I got Forces on Xmas day. I beat story mode shortly after and have since been playing mission mode.

It's a bad game, but nowhere as awful as has been made out. Other Sonic games were frustrating because they had cheap hits and were broken to play. Forces' main problem is that it's horribly bland.

It feels like it started of life as a mobile port of Colours and Generations as it bares some similarities to these titles but everything else is missing. Only the avatar can use the color powers, but there's a bizarre limitation which means they can only use one power type per a stage (which the player choses before starting), so all the fun that came from experimenting with the abilties in Colours is missing. Like Generations, this game features the return of classic stages (many of which were in Generations as well), but all the classic level gimmicks are missing.

The controls are broken with the characters sliding all over the place, but the game's so bland and lacking in obstacles, that it's rarely an issue.

Because there aren't many cheap hits, I've had more fun with it than other bad Sonic titles. There are more paths than other weak games, although, the sheer blandness of it all means that they aren't as rewarding to find.

I am genuinely puzzled over why it's so weak. Development started immediately after Lost World, which means Forces had one of the longest development schedules for a Sonic game. (Contrast it with Generations which had a shortened cycle, due to being a last minute decision).

Interestingly, Sega was toying with the idea of an avatar creator back in 2013 with it's scrapped Side Kick contest for Android/iOS, so perhaps Forces really was a mobile project. In addition, back in early 2016, there was also a job posting from an unnamed Japanese video game company looking to recruit people for a 'blue hedgehog' game. There's only been machine translations of the ad, but it looks like they were producing a 3D remake. So it seems Forces has been through many revisions which might explain why it is so broken.