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.
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.