FA+
Shop
Sonic Forces Impressions (No Spoilers)
8 years ago
If each of my followers gave a dollar a month, I could quit my dayjob! Consider supporting me via Ko-Fi, or FA Shinies!
You can also buy buy my stories on Payhip!
My Bluesky
You can also buy buy my stories on Payhip!
My Bluesky
So while I'm busy trying to capitalize on Forces' release with that Payhip portfolio, I figured I should actually write my thoughts on the game itself.
In terms of story, I'd say it's your average story. Not too bad, not outstanding, but average with a few twists here or there.
In terms of gameplay, my experience was colored by the poor optimization of the PC version. I always was thrilled to be in control of Modern Sonic. The Avatar's gameplay wasn't perfect (their homing attack is annoyingly slow), but I got the hang of them fast. Classic Sonic was the worst, feeling heavy and ironically rather slow, the fact he feels shoehorned in aside. I'd actually say the best character to play as is Shadow, both because his Boost has a better aesthetic, and he has a faster Homing Attack than Sonic, allowing for much faster play. Of course, almost all his levels are just Modern Sonic's, barring the 3 included as part of the DLC.
My biggest beef with the gameplay is how horribly easy it is. I played on Hard Mode and breezed through most levels. On the levels that do present a challenge, it's often due to slippery controls: e.g. platform after platform after platform where it's easy to slip into the void of death. Overall though, you can easily beat the game in 4-5 hours.
The music was just kickass overall. It's got plenty of nostalgia trips while lots of original tracks as well. It's definitely an area where there was a nice callback to the Adventure era's aesthetic.
On the whole, the game feels like a missed opportunity to be something much better. Better optimization, tighter controls, and a little more time to flesh out the story and stages could have made it really great.
I would say it's definitely worth a rent, but one should hold off on a purchase until the price drops.
In terms of story, I'd say it's your average story. Not too bad, not outstanding, but average with a few twists here or there.
In terms of gameplay, my experience was colored by the poor optimization of the PC version. I always was thrilled to be in control of Modern Sonic. The Avatar's gameplay wasn't perfect (their homing attack is annoyingly slow), but I got the hang of them fast. Classic Sonic was the worst, feeling heavy and ironically rather slow, the fact he feels shoehorned in aside. I'd actually say the best character to play as is Shadow, both because his Boost has a better aesthetic, and he has a faster Homing Attack than Sonic, allowing for much faster play. Of course, almost all his levels are just Modern Sonic's, barring the 3 included as part of the DLC.
My biggest beef with the gameplay is how horribly easy it is. I played on Hard Mode and breezed through most levels. On the levels that do present a challenge, it's often due to slippery controls: e.g. platform after platform after platform where it's easy to slip into the void of death. Overall though, you can easily beat the game in 4-5 hours.
The music was just kickass overall. It's got plenty of nostalgia trips while lots of original tracks as well. It's definitely an area where there was a nice callback to the Adventure era's aesthetic.
On the whole, the game feels like a missed opportunity to be something much better. Better optimization, tighter controls, and a little more time to flesh out the story and stages could have made it really great.
I would say it's definitely worth a rent, but one should hold off on a purchase until the price drops.
if people just rent, or get a price drop, avatar stuff will die and sega will NEVER go back to it =\
like they done with other games, ESPECIALLY the extramlly most forgotten game sonic battle which is not a bad sonic game but we got nothing like it ............ so basicly #savetheavatargameplay so that it can be fixed and improved on
i am going to do my own review and talk about why the avatar stuff needs to stay as a permanent sonic gameplay.
THE GAME'S MARKETED TO KIDS. Like, kids don't care if a story is cheesy??? They don't give a shit if the fucking shadows and character models look perfect?????? They DEFINITELY don't care if the game's easy- THAT'S MORE FUN TO THEM.
-I called the game would not be received well and at best might get around Lost World, and it's doing even worse than that.
-I called that Classic would not be a good addition and be tacked on.
-I called the "resistance" was basically gonna be just Sonic more or less and the avatar, while the rest do nothing.
-I called Knuckles so called leader role would barely mean anything, and he'd barely do anything to really boost his character, despite being written a little bit better
-I called Tails would be utterly worthless in this game which he entirely was, and even beyond my expectations of just how much character assassination he got.
-I called it was gonna be Gens 2 despite the marketing constantly trying to say it wasn't. It basically was in the same vein Sonic 06 is basically Adventure 3.
-I called the fanbase would pull another Rise of Lyric where they attack those who were right all along in their skepticism, as well as death threats here and there.
I think SEGA played it safe with this title and stuck to the formula- give us the Sonic Set of stages (typically a city one, a grassy one, a casino one, a water one, a metal futuristic one), and it paid off. No forced wagglehog mechanics, no big the cat fishing levels, no "find the hermit crabs" mission - they need to do more like this, but they need to make the next mainline project bigger. If not in more levels, then more sub-missions for each level (regular, collect 100 rings, timed, hard mode) so as to add some replay value.
Story is, eh - it's a Sonic story. Robotnik does some bad shit / awakens some new menace, Sonic and friends stop him. I'll take it.
I find a lot of the time in the game is the missions, but that's more a grindy thing, than any actual length to the game.
All said, They could flesh out characters a lot more, and yeah, spread the love.
It's not a bad game, it's just not a really -good- one.
Infinite was good at being a genuine villain and had some genuinely badass moments. His main theme is also awesome and reminds me of the SA days. What they did to send him off really sucked though. In comparison even Mario Odissey treated its throwaway villains, the Broodals, with much more respect, as their final battle felt like an actual last stand for them and the send-off was great for the kind of characters they were. Infinite's goodbye just...happens...Like a lot of stuff in the game, really.
The writing and pacing are rushed, there's no weight to the events and the whole shtick of bringing back villains also felt like something to attract fanboys as you only actually face only two of the four...which sucks because I was looking forward to a cool remix of Chaos 0's theme, but the guy just disappeared without a trace in mid-game.
Classic Sonic also feels like a huge shoehorn and it's clear how he's just there for the Generations fans...His levels are easily the worst part of the game. Bad music, bad level design, bad physics...Even Sonic 4 was better than this.
And finally, the way they treat Tails as a character is just disgusting as he just stands there doing nothing while he always wanted to be like his friend Sonic and save the day with him. I don't know, the game does have some small cool moments here and there, but all it does is show me how Sonic Team just doesn't really have any knowledge of what Sonic's universe is or how their characters behave or how to even design a good game or write good stories. It's a huge missed opportunity :/
Also, the final boss was rehashed from Sonic Colors.
I'll stop rambling here X3;