Sonic Forces received decidedly mixed reviews from both journalists and consumers. Coming off the back of the excellent Sonic Mania it has a lot to live up to and ultimately it didn’t quite deliver. Interestingly, when you exclude the bosses the 3D sections in Sonic Forces are only 15 minutes long. Here’s what YouTuber Lawrence Granroth had to say:
“Sonic Forces is a game I have mixed feelings about. The biggest issue is how often the game puts modern sonic / avatar into 2D as well as constantly taking control away to automate some sequence of events. I bought this game specifically to play 3D sonic and came out rather disappointed at how little of that there was in the whole package. The footage here is my second play-through of the game with all moments where you can’t control the character in 3D edited out. Specifically: – menus/cut-scenes, of course – classic sonic and 2D sections of the 3D characters – long automated sequences (the train in that one avatar stage) – the boss fights, while most are 3D, they are essentially padding and come out as tedious wait-fests. – the slide, because the slide All that’s left is about 15 minutes of 3D sonic(and avatar). And even then a-lot of this game-play is grinding on solo rails or just boosting straight with little challenge or player input required.”
The game is disappointingly boring. There’s nothing special about the game. At least it’s playable, but it’s so boring.
That’s not the half of it, besides the levels being boring the cutscenes are corny, and I beat the game in about 2 1/2 hours with a good chunk of it being the story. The daily bonus even made me get S rank on each level with my first try effectively killing any incentive to replay it.
It’s a good thing the game’s only $45 bucks. It sure as heck isn’t a $79 game. But taking that into consideration I’m actually having a pretty good time with it. The soundtrack is truly pumping and the graphics in the automated sequences are at least fairly pretty to look at. And the build-your-own-character function was a lot more fun than I was expecting it to be.
I found the control in the 2D sections to be so absolutely terrible, though. So many deaths for me! But at least the levels are short so that helps manage the anger, lol. For me, maybe still a little overpriced but I am thankful that it isn’t a full-priced game. The first Sonic game I ever played on my life was Lost World (I was strictly a Nintendo guy in th 90s). I remember that one being more challenging and I enjoyed that one too, even though it was commonly panned by critics too.
I dunno… poor Sonic. I wonder if Sonic Team would ever consider partnering up with Nintendo so that Sonic could control a bit more dependably like Mario does. Maybe even inject a little Nintendo charm in there.
||It isn’t even worth 5 euros…||
“when you exclude the bosses the 3D sections in Sonic Mania is only 15 minutes long.”
Sonic Mania had 3D sections? 🤔
And then I immediately remember the Chassis Emerald bonus stages were 3D deflating my joking way of pointing out a typo.
Dang blasted autocorrect…
Dammit, my bad!
I wanted to love this game, but yeah, it’s really mediocre. I like the QTEs in stages, but everything else is so boring or just automated. On top of that, I’m noticing questionable level design in the 2D sections late in the game (like Imperial Tower with the electrical balls that move around the platforms- sometimes I land right on one after a wall-jumping segment where I couldn’t even see the ball and suddenly Whoop! There it is!) I’ve had it since launch and I still haven’t beaten it because so much of it is just boring, it’s like, what am I gaining from doing this?
Pingback: Las partes jugables puramente 3D de Sonic Forces que no son jefes pueden pasarse en menos de 15 minutos
“And even then a-lot of this game-play is grinding on solo rails or just boosting straight with little challenge or player input required.”
Uh, I’m pretty sure that’s how it was with Generations, Colors, and Unleashed too.
And yet those games get praised for this mechanic.
This is only showing how hypocritical this fanbase is.
Trust me it wasn’t like that
Uh yes it was.
I’ve played them.
I found sonic colors and unleashed to be well balanced depending on which version you buy, I didn’t even like generations
None of those 3 games has nearly enough padding as Forces.
I’ve played them.
I don’t even know what padding IS!
I mean wasn’t padding supposed to mean it goes on and on and on? If that’s true then wouldn’t Forces be the OPPOSITE of padding due to the levels being so short? If anything you’re making it sound like Colors Unleashed and Generations did the padding.
You don’t understand. Forces has more stuff that didn’t require gameplay and called it good. The other 3 games lasted a lot longer.
“Forces has more stuff that didn’t require gameplay and called it good.”
What does that even mean!?
Exactly what it says. It’s not hard to understand.
Unleashed, Colors and especially Generations depend on your control to keep speed uninterrupted and they have tons of alternate pathways. Here they just designed long corridors.
Could have been a great touch game though.
Hate Sonic Boom’s bugs all you want, but unlike the other 3D Sonic games. Boom actually had gameplay.
It’s true and you know it.
Why am I the only one who thinks this game will be good with upcoming patches!?
Breath of the Wild got patches, Sonic Mania got patches, so why can’t people act like the patches won’t fix anything!?
Even Sega addressed the PC crash issue with Sonic Forces. GOD it’s like people are forgetting patches are a thing now!
:/ Least I can be happy knowing the biggest issue people have with this game is the gameplay & not the story which seems to be the issue many had with Shadow the Hedgehog because it was too dark in spite of the gameplay being fun & long. (Not to mention the replay value because of the different paths you can take that effect the game’s ending. People seriously should get over how dark the story is & the fact Shadow uses guns & stuff. Least he wasn’t a carbon copy of Sonic in that game.)
Hm. Maybe there is some truth to how horrible the Sonic fanbase is, after all.
Are you kidding me? Because they don’t like this obviously lazy game designed by the worst team yet? If a very small group of dedicated fans can make an awesome 2D game compare to a team of Sega officials who makes more disappointing games than Nintendo in 20 years time, it’s saying that Sega is pathetic to begin with. They have completely and absolutely lost their way since 2006-2007.
I’m not talking about this game but Shadow the Hedgehog. Great gameplay, a good & long story, great replay value, and Shadow isn’t a carbon copy of Sonic as he actually doesn’t rely on speed or spin ball homing attacks alone but weapons too yet a lot of fans complain about how dark it is or the fact Shadow uses guns when that’s what actually stops him from being a carbon copy of Sonic in the first place. (I could understand if it was Sonic using guns as that would have been out of character for him.)
……*facepalm* You’re joking…great gameplay? Nope. Nowhere near as great as SA2. Great replay value? With only a dozen levels that forces you to play more than a dozen times for multiple endings that don’t mean shit because it’s a level padding that requires you to do to get the true Canon ending and final level which pissed off everyone. Long story? Black Arms shows up out of the blue for no reason, needs the emeralds for no reason and it’s incoherent plot makes players wanna quit playing the same fucking game multiple times for a meaningless choice ending branches that’s all for nothing. Shadow is a carbon copy PERIOD. That’s why they threw in guns…fucking guns…to make him stand out as some edgy motherfucker which is another dumbass sales gimmick of the game. That game I’d where Sega has gone full blown retarded on handling Sonic game designs.
Well everything about Shadow the Hedgehog was great to me, so I enjoyed the game immensely. (I’d definitely buy it again if it ever gets an HD remaster.)
Barf.
And I’m not defending this team that made Sonic Forces. I’ve heard enough bad stuff about the game to know this team doesn’t deserve defending. (Sega should outsource Sonic to a 3rd party developer that can actually make good stories & not hype up what could have been one of the best villains in a Sonic game since Chaos but instead not only give him the easiest boss fights in the game but not even let him be the final boss of said game. Being a fan of Infinite, Sega has proven once again they can’t make a good 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game these days.)
Which they won’t outsource Sonic for a good reason: Sonic Boom. Nintendo could make a great Sonic game if given the chance because they know Sonic better than it’s own creator.
Yeah. Sega will pretend it was all Big Red Button’s fault that game was bad when it was actually their fault for rushing Big Red Button in making the game because of the very short release date time frame BRB was given.
They had 3 fucking years. There’s no excuse for either side.
Mania is twice the game this shit WISHES to be. The plot is falsely dark, Infinite is an absolute joke plotwise and boss fights, no Shadow or Chaos boss fights because the newbies got lazy to do them (so…WTF was the point of hyping them both in trailers?), No Super Sonic or Chaos Emeralds, levels are too repetitive/short and the characters are fucking pointless/useless. The only thing that holds the game up is the visuals, music and DeviantART OC Creator. Oh and Classic Sonic is the most pointless part of the game and it’s control/music/level is complete ASS. I would have to be bold to say this but 3DS Generations play better than this entire game and have a few more content. Jesus, how is this even possible? I’ll tell you: Sega intelligently have the same director from Sonic 2006 to direct this game, have fewer employees than 2006 staff, the programmers are completely noobs who never designed a video game before and the writers of this rushed plot are the same writers who did Lost World, Colors and Generations which are among the laziest to worse storylines in recent years.
I have to agree with everything you said in your comment.
I remember doing a mini review on Sonic Forces replying to another one of your comments on a different article and for some reason I gave it a 7/10. Looking back at the game now, I’d definitely give it a 5 or 6/10. I was being way too generous to this game and I think the only reason I didn’t give it lower than a 7 was because I hadn’t played a 3D Sonic game since Sonic and the Secret Rings and when I heard another 3D Sonic game was going to be released I was really excited to play it. Heck, I was even more excited than Sonic Mania (which I enjoyed immensely). But, despite the campaign being very short, I still enjoyed the game for what it was and SEGA made a good decision not pricing the game at full retail price.
It’s definitely not the worst Sonic game, but SEGA could of done a lot more with Sonic Forces, though. In my opinion, they should give the boost gameplay a break and maybe try another Sonic Adventure styled Sonic game again and take their time making it and not rush it like they did with Sonic 06.