By far one of my most hated games due to the anticipation built up beforehand and the damage it has done to sonic as a whole, the game doesnt understand its characters with everyone besides the main 3 feeling useless especially when characters like tails, knuckles, omega, etc have had huge adventures in their own right along with character development that this game chooses to ignore, the levels themselves arnt even any fun the designs are insanely boring in modern stages which wouldnt matter because the levels end before you realize it while the classic stages are so awful to control even when generations nailed classic before this, the story is awful like every story in this era but somehow worse its like they wanted to make a adventure era story but forgot to make a villian with an interesting motive (not that it matters since they recycle the same final boss from the previous 2 games for some god knows reason) along with actual pacing and charming dialogue. The only redeeming part of this game is the avatar however that mechanic as a whole feels extremely underwhelming with all species looking the exact same minus the head with customization barely existing outside of cosmetics. Look if you want to play forces just watch paint dry youd get the same experience.

A prime of example of great ideas, poor execution. It shocks me that 6 years after Generations released, we essentially got a game that's worse in nearly every aspect. Boost Sonic definitely doesn't control as well as Adventure Sonic, but I always found it manageable to do tight platforming most of the time. In Sonic Forces case, the jump arc is very shoddy, starting off slow and awkwardly speeding up immediately, causing you to often overshoot or undershoot what should be an easy jump. The turning also sucks, but it doesn't really matter in levels that feel insubstantial at best and feel short due to massive amounts of automation padding out sections of the level. Not to mention, this game pissed the hell off fans who wanted a deep, darker story with returning villains and what we got is nostalgia bait mixed in with a story that never really tries to do anything with the material it has. Definitely skip this one and just play Sonic Generations instead, unless you want to speed-run or download mods for this game.

Sonic Forces is easily one of the most overhated games in this series, as well as one of the most underwhelming. This game blends several great things about this franchise into one of the most average games the series has seen. It absolutely has its qualities, as well as some stupid design choices, this is quite an oddball of a game.

Forces’ story is nothing much despite the initially interesting premise. Dr Eggman, using the power of Sonic Mania’s phantom Ruby which appeared in front of him, enhances a member of a gang creating a being named “Infinite” who is able to create illusions so real they can kill. He uses infinite to finally beat up Sonic, capture him and take over 99% of the world. So a resistance led by Knuckles and joined by your own Avatar character front the fight to take back the planet. Classic Sonic from Mania is here as the phantom Ruby brought him to this timeline, and Modern Sonic is rescued quickly and then it’s just a case of defeating Infinite’s illusions of previous Sonic villains and defeating Eggman. There’s not much going on here, there’s a lot of dialouge but most of it is done through radio conversations as opposed to full on cutscenes. The cutscenes are okay, animation is good and the acting is on point, but the actual writing is pretty bad and doesn’t seem to know what tone it’s trying to present. Things wrap up quickly and there isn’t much else to say after that.

Forces’ gameplay is split into 3 styles, Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic and your own Avatar. It’s a cool idea to be able to join the fight alongside the Sonic’s, but not much is really done with that as we’ve discussed. There’s 30 stages including boss fights, and you simply select them from a world map. It sounds like a lot, it’s not, but bear with.

Modern Sonic has gone back to the boost formula, he can blaze through stages, homing attack, air boost, stomp and grind on rails. All the boxes are checked, but not only is the control even more stiff than Colours when on the ground, but the levels really don’t ask for much. To be fair this means the control isn’t really a problem, but these stages are almost always a straight line with the occasional deviation for a red ring collectible. They also end in no time leading to stages that have a lot of energy, but constantly leave you wanting more.

Classic Sonic didn’t get treated well here, he’s been slowed down significantly since generations, especially with his Spindash which has been nerfed. There’s no rolling physics either and whenever you make a jump, it feels so heavy. One positive I can say is that the drop dash appears here, and it works pretty well. But this is one of Classic Sonic’s worst appearances by far, even if he ends up having some of the longer levels.

The avatar is interesting, it’s basically modern Sonic without the boost, but they give you a grappling hook and a whole ton of weapons called Wispons. The grappling hook is almost always automatic so that’s very unfortunate, but the wispons.. they had a good idea here. Every wispon has a different attack, from a flamethrower, to a lightning whip to a black hole gun, they are (mostly) fun to use. They also all let you activate the wisp power associated with the gun, letting you take some different paths in stages. It’s a shame this is all under-utilised due to the games short levels and low difficulty. It doesn’t really matter what you end up using because every gun is fit for the job. But I do enjoy customising the Avatar, it’s one of the better things about this game.

Sometimes you’ll play a stage with both Sonic and the Avatar, and genuinely I think these are fun due to the different approach options you can take. You also get to “Double Boost” where in a quick time event, you blast off at a much higher speed. I like the energy of these parts… but you don’t even need to touch the controller during them.

Boss fights are pretty weak overall, some of them being exact copies of one another. They either go down pathetically easy, or drag out for ages and there’s not much In between.

Forces has a great pace, it just keeps moving, there’s no stupid gimmick levels, no confusing gameplay styles, it’s just faced paced action… for about 3-4 hours till it’s over. Don’t get me wrong Colours and Generations were just as short, but they gave you more to do outside of the basics. Forces extra content comes down to a few extra stages and collectible hunting for no actual reason besides an achievement.

The game looks great and I actually like the OST more than most, it gives a different vibe but i do like these tunes.

Forces could have been a lot of things, but it never feels like it wanted to be. It’s a very safe game, one that is not terrible or broken, it’s just underwhelming, and that’s a shame.

Eu não joguei muito jogos de Sonic, experimentei alguns e conheço a formula mas nunca de fato desbravei essa franquia a fundo, entretanto algo que eu sempre admirei dentro da franquia, é como ela se apropria de elementos populares lançados em suas respectivas epocas, fazendo com que os jogos soem familiares mas sempre tragam uma proposta muito fora da caixa, e Sonic Forces não é diferente.
Dada a data que ele saiu eu presumo que muito da ideia por trás do Forces venha do boom de filmes "evento" em especial dentro do MCU, temos a culminação de varios elementos familiares da franquia em uma unica obra, e no caso de Forces é interessante o que ele considera os pontos chave do sucesso da franquia, ele trás aquele que iniciou tudo e já se mostrou uma ideia rentavel em outros jogos mais modernos, o Sonic classico, o proprio Sonic moderno que é o que temos atualmente como o mais reconhecivel, e inusitadamente ele coloca o jogador como um personagem dentro do jogo através de um sistema de criação e customização de personagem. Fora isso em sua narrativa decolonialista, ele faz com que os vilões mais marcantes da franquia se unam, então é realmente uma guerra geracional, onde o time Sonic representa a força de resistencia contra o exercito colonizador de Eggman, e no papel isso é enorme, algo que se vende como além de um jogo tradicional do Sonic, e sim como um evento especial, porém... só no papel.
Ideias boas com uma execução que eu julguei como... preguiçosa? Eu não consegui sentir nenhum esforço para fazer esses elementos funcionarem juntos e além do esforço para isso não existe nenhuma pretensão em usar dessa ideia para ser algo marcante, é tudo como uma grande referencia vazia. Elementos funcionam separadamente, não é um desastre no quesito tecnico, mas é tão sem inspiração e sem proposito que eu não consegui sentir nada além de sono e frustração, o level design é ruim mas nem ao ponto de ser algo marcante, a narrativa é atropelada ao ponto de não causar o esboço de uma emoção, talvez se o jogo fosse pior eu teria gostado mais dele, mas ele existir ou não é irrelevante.

Every single aspect of this game was designed specifically to put into trailers and mislead fans into getting excited.

This is a nothing-game.

Also the character customisation isn't even good! You can't make anything that even looks remotely like a Sonic character, just very generic and ugly designs without much variation.

Hoobastank vocal theme and Silver's inclusion are the only things keeping this from a 1-star rating.

good god what the hell happened here?! well let's start with the story

while the premise is really interesting, that being eggman actually won and took over the world, the game doesn't do anything to make it feel that way, the tone is all over the place and doesn't know whether to take it seriously or not. the dialogue and exchange between characters are just not great, infinite is such a nothing character despite having a cool af design and voice.

the gameplay is just so stiff and automatic for modern sonic and the avatar, what happened to the generations controls?? and classic sonic is just the worst he's ever been. i really dislike the gameplay for this game and it's level design is such a nothing burger too, short and automatic.

i do like the customization of the avatar, it has many selections to your liking. and the soundtrack can be pretty good too (besides classic sonic of course) but that's about all i can praise the game for

this game is easily the worst boost game and one of my least favorite sonic game to play, im somehow even more disappointed in it than sonic 06. buy on a huge sale if possible