You've heard it right, "Sonic was never good" "Sonic was only good in 2D" I've never bought into that, I thoroughly enjoyed Sonic from it's 2D days well into the 3D days but the series has been so thoroughly off track since 2006 with it's ill fated Sonic '06 entry. After a series if poorly conceived and boring gimmicks we were treated to Sonic Colors which felt like a real rebound for the series. Then came Generations, many loved it, I was meh on it to be honest, feeling it was too short and the controls too stiff for platforming.
Sonic Lost World came next which looked like Sega's sorry attempt to ride Mario's coattails with a Galaxy-esque design style and returning the Whisps from Sonic Colors. That game was dull and plagued by so many poor choices. Sonic Boom was another odd experiment that I had hopes for but was sorely disappointed on. Now we have Sonic Forces, promising at first, a game that's been in development for a long time, no sorry rush jobs, enough time to really think about the design mentalities from the last six years and a new generation of consoles to welcome to and it all has fallen apart. Everything done right in Colors has thoroughly been undone in this one game.
The flaws: Early promises with the first few stages until the game ramps it up with artificial difficulty with a slew of bottomless pits. True pits are time honored platform traditions, even in Sonic games but this game really laid it on thick! This game might as well be Bottomless Pits, the Game, featuring Sonic the Hedgehog. The most egregious of pits, the last two stages, Metropolis and The Tower level where precise timing is key to not falling in these pits that litter these stages.
The controls are clunky and awkward. You control between Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic (though I guess now he's just Alternate Sonic) and your own custom avatar. Classic Sonic can't make it up a simple loop even while running at a decent pace, what is this, Sonic 4? I thought we fixed this long ago, Sonic Team! Modern Sonic and Avatar are a little floaty thought somehow it doesn't work as it did before in the Adventure series. Again probably because the abundance of bottomless pits makes it easy to overshoot your platform. Despite being floaty your jump is also terribly gimped, as gimped as it was back in Generations. Somehow the game is floaty and gimped at the same time, I really don't understand.
The whisps are back but terribly this time. Perhaps the most fun aspect of Sonic Colors has been reduced to a small powerup that's good for maybe five seconds at most and is limited to one single weapon your avatar can get. And it's not as though your avatar can change weapons on the fly, no that'd mean doing something well in this. The homing attack, a Sonic staple for 20 years now, since Adventure 1, is here but is bizarrely relegated to the need of a reticule lock on mechanic. Why?! Why change what has been known for nearly two-decades, what's been ingrained into every player who ever picked up a modern 3D Sonic game, why of all things would you change that. This franchise has seen many changes over the years with it's mechanics and styles but if anything has been consistent it's the homing attack.
The Rage-Quit moment: I had two rage-quit moments in this, first was during the Zavok battle, the first boss in the game. The key is to hold your position on the ground and let his ground pound launch you into the air. This isn't communicated to you in anyway so what's your first instinct, jump into the air to get the homing attack! I must have jumped over and over again but nothing came about. I constantly restarted, intentionally died just thinking maybe I was hitting some kind of bug until I learned the proper way to do that. What's your first instinct in a game like this where the boss rides high in the air, or again any 3D Sonic game before Lost World? JUMP INTO A BOSS! The second moment was the final level, suddenly wall jumping is back! It was nowhere to be found for most of the game but now I have to do it here, with a slippery as can be custom character over an endless amount of pits. I couldn't make it through, I just got fed up with constantly falling and dying and falling and dying! The positives? Though I give this game a real failing score there are just a few bright spots, they're few and not enough to really save this but most of the music is pretty good. Probably one of the better soundtracks in a while from a series sometimes known for better music than games. The last few games have come to rely on dull orchestral scores (orchestral is usually great but not what I come to want in a Sonic game) and badly auto tuned theme songs. Forces goes back to the mix and match of rock and synth pop that made the Adventure games so memorable. But even there there's a few dull tunes, 2D Death Egg was garbage, not taking from either S3&K or Sonic 2 (likely for Sega being cheap in licensing). The story is the same goofy cheesy comedy we've had since Colors, which is for the best, Sonic trying to get too serious just comes off as trying too hard. We had it work once in SAT-AM let's call that lightning in a bottle magic and not keep trying it.
Early promises of Forces and early good will steadily faded the longer I played. I'm not going to waste more time by finishing it, I'm done with this game and I'm done with this franchise.
Sonic Lost World came next which looked like Sega's sorry attempt to ride Mario's coattails with a Galaxy-esque design style and returning the Whisps from Sonic Colors. That game was dull and plagued by so many poor choices. Sonic Boom was another odd experiment that I had hopes for but was sorely disappointed on. Now we have Sonic Forces, promising at first, a game that's been in development for a long time, no sorry rush jobs, enough time to really think about the design mentalities from the last six years and a new generation of consoles to welcome to and it all has fallen apart. Everything done right in Colors has thoroughly been undone in this one game.
The flaws: Early promises with the first few stages until the game ramps it up with artificial difficulty with a slew of bottomless pits. True pits are time honored platform traditions, even in Sonic games but this game really laid it on thick! This game might as well be Bottomless Pits, the Game, featuring Sonic the Hedgehog. The most egregious of pits, the last two stages, Metropolis and The Tower level where precise timing is key to not falling in these pits that litter these stages.
The controls are clunky and awkward. You control between Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic (though I guess now he's just Alternate Sonic) and your own custom avatar. Classic Sonic can't make it up a simple loop even while running at a decent pace, what is this, Sonic 4? I thought we fixed this long ago, Sonic Team! Modern Sonic and Avatar are a little floaty thought somehow it doesn't work as it did before in the Adventure series. Again probably because the abundance of bottomless pits makes it easy to overshoot your platform. Despite being floaty your jump is also terribly gimped, as gimped as it was back in Generations. Somehow the game is floaty and gimped at the same time, I really don't understand.
The whisps are back but terribly this time. Perhaps the most fun aspect of Sonic Colors has been reduced to a small powerup that's good for maybe five seconds at most and is limited to one single weapon your avatar can get. And it's not as though your avatar can change weapons on the fly, no that'd mean doing something well in this. The homing attack, a Sonic staple for 20 years now, since Adventure 1, is here but is bizarrely relegated to the need of a reticule lock on mechanic. Why?! Why change what has been known for nearly two-decades, what's been ingrained into every player who ever picked up a modern 3D Sonic game, why of all things would you change that. This franchise has seen many changes over the years with it's mechanics and styles but if anything has been consistent it's the homing attack.
The Rage-Quit moment: I had two rage-quit moments in this, first was during the Zavok battle, the first boss in the game. The key is to hold your position on the ground and let his ground pound launch you into the air. This isn't communicated to you in anyway so what's your first instinct, jump into the air to get the homing attack! I must have jumped over and over again but nothing came about. I constantly restarted, intentionally died just thinking maybe I was hitting some kind of bug until I learned the proper way to do that. What's your first instinct in a game like this where the boss rides high in the air, or again any 3D Sonic game before Lost World? JUMP INTO A BOSS! The second moment was the final level, suddenly wall jumping is back! It was nowhere to be found for most of the game but now I have to do it here, with a slippery as can be custom character over an endless amount of pits. I couldn't make it through, I just got fed up with constantly falling and dying and falling and dying! The positives? Though I give this game a real failing score there are just a few bright spots, they're few and not enough to really save this but most of the music is pretty good. Probably one of the better soundtracks in a while from a series sometimes known for better music than games. The last few games have come to rely on dull orchestral scores (orchestral is usually great but not what I come to want in a Sonic game) and badly auto tuned theme songs. Forces goes back to the mix and match of rock and synth pop that made the Adventure games so memorable. But even there there's a few dull tunes, 2D Death Egg was garbage, not taking from either S3&K or Sonic 2 (likely for Sega being cheap in licensing). The story is the same goofy cheesy comedy we've had since Colors, which is for the best, Sonic trying to get too serious just comes off as trying too hard. We had it work once in SAT-AM let's call that lightning in a bottle magic and not keep trying it.
Early promises of Forces and early good will steadily faded the longer I played. I'm not going to waste more time by finishing it, I'm done with this game and I'm done with this franchise.