Sonic team and Sega dared to ask the question of “what if Breath of the Wild was better” and came up with this as the answer. I think they succeeded.




(Half star off for the kind of shitty finale, other half star because of the lowkey lack of polish in some aspects)

COLORS WEAVE INTO A SPIRE OF FLAME
DISTANT SPARKS CALL TO A PAST STILL
UNNAMED
BEAR THIS TORCH AGAINST THE COLD OF THE NIGHT
SEARCH YOUR SOUL AND REAWAKEN YOUR UNDYING LIIIIIIGHTTT

Legit the rise of skywalker of the sonic franchise: an attempt to course correct from where the franchise was heading, only to alienate the entire goddamn fanbase because things just end up being mid as fuck, as this one attempts to have a bigger focus on story. The key word here is "attempt" because it ain't good. "eggman wins" is such a cool idea for a sonic game story, but the game barely makes use of it. Previous sonic games, such as colors and generations also had weak stories, but thing is, they weren't ambitious, which is ok as they made up in the gameplay and other aspects. Thing is, forces DOES try and be ambitious and be this grand tale of resistance, but it fails at that. And most importantly it doesn't make up for it gameplay wise.

Starting with the obvious that everyone's already said about this, the level design is really bad. People joke that sony playstation exclusive games are just movies you play sometimes; and that applies to forces' level design. Long gone are the days of sonic generations with it's countless pathways, and shortcuts. Instead there's only one path in most levels. Maybe if you're lucky there will be 1 or 2 shortcuts, but they quickly send you back to the main path. the worst part is that the out of the 3 characters, 2 of them (modern sonic and the avatar) handle like total garbage. Instead of having an acceleration like colors, generations and unleashed, where it was a smooth and consistent one, the characters are slow as snails for a bit and then they reach high speed in less than a second, it's insanity.


Classic sonic has it much better, though his physics are still FAR from perfect. He's basically like how he was in generations, with a worse spin dash, but he speeds up when going downhill; but sadly it doesn't feel nearly as natural as it does in the classic games and mania.

One thing about this game that isn't just painfully mediocre and is actually amazing is the soundtrack. I know some people dislike it because it's electronic/techno/drum and bass, but I personally LOVE it, and think it really fits sonic. The one black sheep in the great score though, are classic sonic's tracks, which despite in theory having good compositions, use this weird synth that sounds like sega genesis music does, but it's just off, causing his songs to feel kind of like from a sonic parody.

the reason why I played this is because sonic frontiers is releasing soon at the time of writing this review, and by all accounts it seems like the end of the "meta" era (the era of sonic games that began in colors that marked the start of multiple tropes, most important ones being constant use of nostalgia, a lesser focus on story and a more "self-aware" attitude, to please gamers that hated the sonic franchise during the 2000s), with what is by all accounts, an evolution of the 3D sonic. And forces is sure as hell an underwhelming finale. The game was made free on ps plus a while back, so if you ended up grabbing it there but haven't played it yet, don't care about plot and just want a mindless sonic something to play, then sure, go for it. But as a fan of this franchise, I just get disappointed thinking what could've been...