I think the moment that's most emblematic of Sonic Forces as an experience is this one point where Shadow appears in a cutscene, All Hail Shadow begins to play, but before the lyrics can come in and all the buildup can pay off the song just ends and gets replaced with generic dramatic score.
I mean, that doesn't really get into how passive and boring the game feels to play but in terms of what's actively objectionable I think that's a good lead-in. The game teases so much in regards to celebrating the 25 years of Sonic but then proceeds to do absolutely nothing with it: nearly all the unique, varied baddies from Sonic's history come back, but they have barely any presence and are written out by the halfway point in favour of a new guy whose entire character is basically "i'm not owned! i'm not owned!!!!!!!!!" There's the premise of a Sonic game where the bad guy actually manages to win and where the good guys are on their back foot, but its attempts at taking that darker approach are just laughably edgy (sonic was tortured in Eggman's base for a year) and once again it eventually just centralizes around a villain who's just not that interesting and leaves Eggman, the actual main antagonist and final boss as an afterthought. The game promises a hybrid of 2D and 3D Sonic levels to directly follow up from Generations (the best Sonic game), butttttt every stage just ends up following the pattern of "start 3D ---> go 2D and never leave" unless its 2D from the start.
Which I think leads to why actually going through the levels just felt so boring. There's a whopping thirty total story stages, wayyyyy more than any other sonic game, and I think it's this level of quantity which leads to why the stages don't feel so quality. If the game focused on cutting down the number of stages to make each one larger and more frenetic and fun to play then maybe there'd be something here, but instead every stage lasts like two minutes and the ones that don't stand out for good reason. It's less actively unfun, but... man did I absolutely get nothing out of the gameplay here. It just felt so passive.
There's... minor upsides, though. Namely with the OC. It was way more fun than it should've been to design my very own Sonic character and the way you consistently get new bits of clothing means you're constantly in the design booth touching up your character making it look like the most cursed thing it can be. Linking unlocking new clothes to getting higher ranks on the stage is a great motivator to replay stages (or at least it would if the stages were fun), and overall it's a great innovation that really helps give this game a little bit of identity among the blandness. I hope SEGA brings it back for whatever the next game is.
But overall... bleh. Not really a recommendation. Just... incredibly boring gameplay which takes every good thing it has for it going in and manages to mess it up. There are some interesting things in here, but otherwise... 4/10.
I mean, that doesn't really get into how passive and boring the game feels to play but in terms of what's actively objectionable I think that's a good lead-in. The game teases so much in regards to celebrating the 25 years of Sonic but then proceeds to do absolutely nothing with it: nearly all the unique, varied baddies from Sonic's history come back, but they have barely any presence and are written out by the halfway point in favour of a new guy whose entire character is basically "i'm not owned! i'm not owned!!!!!!!!!" There's the premise of a Sonic game where the bad guy actually manages to win and where the good guys are on their back foot, but its attempts at taking that darker approach are just laughably edgy (sonic was tortured in Eggman's base for a year) and once again it eventually just centralizes around a villain who's just not that interesting and leaves Eggman, the actual main antagonist and final boss as an afterthought. The game promises a hybrid of 2D and 3D Sonic levels to directly follow up from Generations (the best Sonic game), butttttt every stage just ends up following the pattern of "start 3D ---> go 2D and never leave" unless its 2D from the start.
Which I think leads to why actually going through the levels just felt so boring. There's a whopping thirty total story stages, wayyyyy more than any other sonic game, and I think it's this level of quantity which leads to why the stages don't feel so quality. If the game focused on cutting down the number of stages to make each one larger and more frenetic and fun to play then maybe there'd be something here, but instead every stage lasts like two minutes and the ones that don't stand out for good reason. It's less actively unfun, but... man did I absolutely get nothing out of the gameplay here. It just felt so passive.
There's... minor upsides, though. Namely with the OC. It was way more fun than it should've been to design my very own Sonic character and the way you consistently get new bits of clothing means you're constantly in the design booth touching up your character making it look like the most cursed thing it can be. Linking unlocking new clothes to getting higher ranks on the stage is a great motivator to replay stages (or at least it would if the stages were fun), and overall it's a great innovation that really helps give this game a little bit of identity among the blandness. I hope SEGA brings it back for whatever the next game is.
But overall... bleh. Not really a recommendation. Just... incredibly boring gameplay which takes every good thing it has for it going in and manages to mess it up. There are some interesting things in here, but otherwise... 4/10.