Sonic Forces Reviews Thread

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

Of course it's okay for classic sonic to evolve. I don't see how adding archetypes and bloating only the story side of it while not considering the gameplay at all is "evolving" it though. You're not really considering why classic works, what people like about it, what makes it unique and how we can expand on those things.

I think cues from later 2D games, such as the Boost Mode, could be of use.

[MetalSkulkBane]

7 hours ago, Mr. Armstrong said:

Yahtzee has already said in the past that some of his favorite games are Sonic 2 and 3, on the other hand his reviews have always had that kind of humor no matter what franchise is,  taking Yahtzee's comments on a personal level does not make much sense.

I don't want to feel weird about his opinions, trust me.

Still, can you show me where he said that? All I remember is his Mania review.

[Mr. Armstrong]

47 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I don't want to feel weird about his opinions, trust me.

Still, can you show me where he said that? All I remember is his Mania review.

He said it in one of his streams I do not remember in which precisely, but he can see Yahtzee saying positive things about the franchise in this review.

 

[Meta77]

He did the same thing about mania basically saying it was ok but that he sees no reason to go back to the 90s

[MetalSkulkBane]

Eh, I guess.

Still, that's missing my point. I don't mind his opinions about games, I'm worried how he talks about the fandom. Maybe he doesn't mean it, maybe it's comedy on his part, but 1 it still make me feel weird and I just I can't help it 2 I'm worried there are people who will base their opinion about us on those reviews.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

I can understand why people get offended over being made fun of as a Sonic fan but honestly....I don't know why any of you give a shit. I don't. I've been a die hard Sonic fan basically my entire life. I literally have had conversations with people in a professional setting at my job about how great Sonic is (because I basically haven't changed since I was 8 years old) while people kind of laugh and roll their eyes at me. So the f**k what? Just relax and embrace your passions. You'll have a much better life. And they tend to know that even though I love what I love, I'm not going to react much if other people don't appreciate it the way I do. Because it does. not. matter. in the slightest. 

This is why I can watch this guy's review and have a laugh. It can be funny if you remember not to take it too seriously. Many gaming commentators do things intentionally to get a rise out of people and increase viewership. Understand the nature of the game.

Besides, people tend not to rag too much on those who aren't easily offended and more light hearted about relatively unimportant things like 'what's your favorite video game?".

 

[Dannymax440]

 

 

[Meta77]

I agree i was raised as a baby on sonic 1 thought by 91 i was 2. Bit regardless i still love the series. Yoill have guys like this who hate to haate. He complains about charmy but you literally see his butt like twice and speaks only once. As a fan you learn to laugh at the salt. In life youll learn losing sleep over a game will not get you far in life.  Enjoy what you like. If you liked mania good. If you didnt good if you like forces good if tou didnt good. Never let what someone else thinks run how you see things you enjoy.

[Nicky Nicardo]

I didn't know where else to put this that would've made sense, so yeah, here goes. I apologize if this is in the wrong place.

I got Sonic Forces for Christmas and I just beat it about 5 minutes ago. I'd like to share my thoughts.

First of all, this is the first 'modern' Sonic game that I've seriously sat down and played since Sonic Adventure 2 way back in the day - none of the other modern Sonic games interested me, but not because I thought they sucked or anything. It was just that my tastes in games had changed as I got older and I didn't find Sonic games appealing to play. Forces got interested and excited to play a Sonic game mainly because of the custom character - being able to create my own character and have him be IN the Sonic world, fighting evil along Sonic... like a lot of people, it was a childhood dream of mine. So to see it come true in an actual video game? I was sold right then and there.

I went into Forces knowing that the reviews were middling and 'meh' with a few ultra negative and positive ones here and there, as well as knowing a few spoiled details about the game's plot AND the game's short length.

I gotta say, for me, the game's short length is the main thing that I disliked about Forces... because I liked this game. I did. After I finished playing it, I had a huge grin on my face and I literally felt like a kid again for the first time in quite a while. Not only that, but I cried TWICE during the ending credit scenes. I wasn't expecting to get emotional during this game at ALL, so that came as quite a surprise. So yeah, for me, Sonic Forces is a good game. I'm glad that I bought it, I'm glad that I played it, I had fun playing it, and I definitely don't agree with people who say it's a terrible game.

I definitely understand a lot of the criticisms about the game, though. I had problems with the controls for all of the 3 different game styles that I wish were more polished, I didn't like how short the game was, I didn't like how short and sparse the cutscenes were, and I was disappointed with Infinite's origin story (though for me, Infinite was one of the coolest and most badass villains I've seen in a long time, with a perfect amount of silly cheesiness mixed in with all of that badassery). I totally understand people who said that they were hyped about this game, and were ultimately disappointed and let down by the final product. I can definitely understand where they're coming from.

For me, though... I walk away from my first playthough of Forces feeling really good and really happy. If I had to give it a numeric rating (even though I'm not a reviewer/critic and would never proclaim to be one), I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10. It was a good game! Not perfect by any means and with several problems that I wish had been fixed, but it was nowhere near as bad or awful as I saw people claiming it was. Not even close.

And also, I felt the effort and passion that went into this. I saw it. The whole time I was playing, I never once thought that it was a soulless game that no care was put into.

My favorite things about Forces are the story (which I WISH had been longer and more in depth, but I was surprisingly okay with what was offered up), the music (which I absolutely love, particularly the vocal tracks), Infinite as a villain, and the custom character of course - I really hope we get to customize our own characters in future modern Sonic games! The gameplay to me was fun sometimes, frustrating at others, but was never unplayable. To me, classic Sonic controlled the best out of all 3 play styles, and I never found his lack of momentum to be that big of a deal. I saw so many people talking about how horrible that aspect of his play style was, and... it just wasn't that big of a deal to me.

So yeah, I definitely liked Sonic Forces and I think that even though it had several problems, the good things outweighed them for me personally. I totally understand how people can dislike the game and I get the criticisms towards it a lot more clearly now that I've played it, but for me... I gotta give it a thumbs up.

[E-122-Psi]

Playing through Forces on and off. Have to say it isn't that bad, just a bit generic and samey, but still quite fun. As mentioned the controls could have used some fine tuning, forcing speed thrust all the time since Unleashed is becoming a hinderance in platform heavy segments. The music is decent, the graphics are decent (especially on PS4 where it's the first 60fps Sonic game in AGES) and the story while not amazing is passable and fails to be too annoying from what I've played so far, it feels a bit underwhelming though, come on, EGGMAN TOOK OVER THE WORLD (I laugh at the English translations attempts to make it grittier though, stuff like Sonic getting tortured or Tails having a breakdown at the start despite zero evidence onscreen of either, we truly are a pretentious lot).

The biggest drawback to me is just that feeling I've played it all before its just a mishmash of old, Wisps, Generations and what not, it's all recycled and it doesn't all merge together that well. The avatar is okay but not revolutionary, and most of the time I prefer to play as Sonic. I think it's a shame more customisation wasn't considered to really make it a fun and creative gimmick, and sadly I don't see much expansion happening now that SEGA consider it a bomb.

[superman43]

So, I finally got my hands on Sonic Forces and, well, it basically justified my opinion about it.

Classic Sonic: controls badly compared to Mania as if you had controls over jumping piece of rock. The best stage, at least for me, is the one that doesn´t use anything from the past, the very first, Ghost Town. Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Death Egg feel bland, like sucked-of-life versions of original. For Iron Fortress go down.

Modern Sonic: basically as was mentioned by others and I just add up to it... Lost Valley in Green Hill (or Sand Hill ?) lacks quite a lot of what Green Hill was in Generations, there is basically one way in 3D (also applies to all others, in all honesty). For this one, for example, the other route to get to the goal is basically a shortcut via sand vs. going by the bridge. About Mortar Canyon at the end.

Avatar: whilst not being entirely bad, I am perplexed by his gameplay. There is like intention for momentum, but it fails mainly in the later stages. It´s just wonky and controls differently than any Sonic game in history. When you are going slow, you can´t even jump over the pit and if you are going fast (in some brief moments) the character is uncontrollable.

Anyway, I did the game in about 3 hours and that counts the miserably done last stages. If I knew who designed the Imperial Tower stage, I would give him Gold Medal for the most irritating level design. There are far too many bottomless pits from about the 1/4th of the stage and with the wonky Avatar controls, it just make the stage almost unbearable. The sun beam at the end has the same effect as Classic Sonic´s Iron Fortress´ auto-scroller. Mortar Canyon could profit from Generations´ boost. If the boost kept you in the middle of the road, when you are going forward and the terrain is flat, you won´t fall out of the stage as I did (missing the boost pad of course). Final Judgement and Death Egg Robot at least are not THAT irritating. 

Just to say, my time in Imperial Tower was around 11´30´´ with about 40 (maybe ?) retries and a C rank. Other EE Fortress stages were A-B ranks, with Final Boss being an S.

 

I stay by what I said in November, when the game was leaked. It´s 6/10. 

 

P.S.: Why they reused so much of stuff from Scrap Brain/Metallic Madness in Iron Fortress ? Ah, final level. At least we got Mania.

[Multikaris]

43 minutes ago, superman43 said:

So, I finally got my hands on Sonic Forces and, well, it basically justified my opinion about it.

Classic Sonic: controls badly compared to Mania as if you had controls over jumping piece of rock. The best stage, at least for me, is the one that doesn´t use anything from the past, the very first, Ghost Town. Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Death Egg feel bland, like sucked-of-life versions of original. For Iron Fortress go down.

Modern Sonic: basically as was mentioned by others and I just add up to it... Lost Valley in Green Hill (or Sand Hill ?) lacks quite a lot of what Green Hill was in Generations, there is basically one way in 3D (also applies to all others, in all honesty). For this one, for example, the other route to get to the goal is basically a shortcut via sand vs. going by the bridge. About Mortar Canyon at the end.

Avatar: whilst not being entirely bad, I am perplexed by his gameplay. There is like intention for momentum, but it fails mainly in the later stages. It´s just wonky and controls differently than any Sonic game in history. When you are going slow, you can´t even jump over the pit and if you are going fast (in some brief moments) the character is uncontrollable.

Anyway, I did the game in about 3 hours and that counts the miserably done last stages. If I knew who designed the Imperial Tower stage, I would give him Gold Medal for the most irritating level design. There are far too many bottomless pits from about the 1/4th of the stage and with the wonky Avatar controls, it just make the stage almost unbearable. The sun beam at the end has the same effect as Classic Sonic´s Iron Fortress´ auto-scroller. Mortar Canyon could profit from Generations´ boost. If the boost kept you in the middle of the road, when you are going forward and the terrain is flat, you won´t fall out of the stage as I did (missing the boost pad of course). Final Judgement and Death Egg Robot at least are not THAT irritating. 

Just to say, my time in Imperial Tower was around 11´30´´ with about 40 (maybe ?) retries and a C rank. Other EE Fortress stages were A-B ranks, with Final Boss being an S.

 

I stay by what I said in November, when the game was leaked. It´s 6/10. 

 

P.S.: Why they reused so much of stuff from Scrap Brain/Metallic Madness in Iron Fortress ? Ah, final level. At least we got Mania.

I really really shouldn’t have found the last statement hilariously hypocritical, yet I did. And the Death Egg is technically Little Planet so the Metallic Madness materials make perfect sense there.

[superman43]

21 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

I really really shouldn’t have found the last statement hilariously hypocritical, yet I did. And the Death Egg is technically Little Planet so the Metallic Madness materials make perfect sense there.

"Death Egg is technically Little Planet" ? 

[Multikaris]

7 minutes ago, superman43 said:

"Death Egg is technically Little Planet" ? 

See Sonic 4 Episode 2.

[superman43]

3 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

See Sonic 4 Episode 2.

That´s where the graphic resemblance starts and ends. It might as well mean only that S4Ep2 is canon. And that the inspiration for the new Death Egg was Death Egg mk.II. 

Other than that... Classic Sonic version is a less-thrilling S3K counterpart, Modern Sonic is basically Asteroid Coaster mixed with Heroes´ Egg Fleet and Avatar... I don´t know.

[KHCast]

52 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

See Sonic 4 Episode 2.

Sonic 4 isn’t canon though, nor part of modem sonic’s universe as this is a direct follow up to 3&k which is classic’s adventure.

[Tracker_TD]

That and the Death Egg in Forces is blatantly just the Sonic 3 one - the Sonic 3 Act 1 boss even appears in the background at points and it shares basically all of the level gimmicks in Classic's case.

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

Sonic 4 isn’t canon though, nor part of modem sonic’s universe as this is a direct follow up to 3&k which is classic’s adventure.

Oooooooooohhhh. You knever know. Maybe it now happened strictly to Modern Sonic...?

[Razule]

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

Sonic 4 isn’t canon though, nor part of modem sonic’s universe as this is a direct follow up to 3&k which is classic’s adventure.

Or Sonic 4 is canon to Modern's 3&K

[KHCast]

1 hour ago, Miragnarok said:

Oooooooooohhhh. You knever know. Maybe it now happened strictly to Modern Sonic...?

That’s a guess at best unless we’re supposed to assume they meant it took place after a modern equivalent to the events of 3&K

@Razule I doubt Sega meant that or implied that. Unless we yknow get a sonic 3&k: modern version 

the fact we now need to have this ridiculous “what if” in our minds regarding the lore between modern and classic us just shut tbh.

[MetalSkulkBane]

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

Sonic 4 isn’t canon though, nor part of modem sonic’s universe as this is a direct follow up to 3&k which is classic’s adventure.

Are we going to ignore that BOTH Sonics went through Classic Trilogy+CD?

Modern Sonic visited Green Hills, Death Egg and Chemical Plant too many times to not go on those adventures.

Plus, he meat Tails, Amy, Knuckles somewhere, right? SA1 has them out loud reference event of Sonic CD or Sonic 3

[KHCast]

8 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Are we going to ignore that BOTH Sonics went through Classic Trilogy+CD?

Modern Sonic visited Green Hills, Death Egg and Chemical Plant too many times to not go on those adventures.

Plus, he meat Tails, Amy, Knuckles somewhere, right? SA1 has them out loud reference event of Sonic CD or Sonic 3

If our only “evidenc” is a nonconfirmed assumption that the exact same events happened the exact same way for both Sonics, I’m still gonna stand by what I say regarding 4. We’ve only seen the events of classics version, and 4 released when that’s all we knew about. When both Sonics were still one.

[Multikaris]

2 hours ago, Tracker_TD said:

That and the Death Egg in Forces is blatantly just the Sonic 3 one - the Sonic 3 Act 1 boss even appears in the background at points and it shares basically all of the level gimmicks in Classic's case.

2+ Years of remodeling can really destroy the life of a planet for good and leave the ruins unrecognizable beyond relief, can’t it? That’s my explanation. 

[MetalSkulkBane]

15 minutes ago, KHCast said:

If our only “evidence” is a nonconfirmed assumption that the exact same events happened the exact same way for both Sonics, I’m still gonna stand by what I say regarding 4. We’ve only seen the events of classics version, and 4 released when that’s all we knew about. When both Sonics were still one.

 

When confused always go with the simplest solution, I always say.

Problem: Is Sonic 4 a classic or modern timeline.

First Look: He has green eyes. And homing attack.

Question: Would it make sense for Sonic 4 to be part of modern timeline?

Answer: Sure, why not.

And that's my stand. Part of me just wishes to ignore this stupid split, but if it must be here then both Classic Sonic went through "1,2,3&K,CD, (Sonic Generations) Mania" while Modern "every main game except Mania" (plus spin-off, but that's easy to sort). It's really the easiest way

[superman43]

6 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

2+ Years of remodeling can really destroy the life of a planet for good and leave the ruins unrecognizable beyond relief, can’t it? That’s my explanation. 

There is a quote from Rouge that contradicts "remodelling" at the beginning.

6 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

When confused always go with the simplest solution, I always say.

Problem: Is Sonic 4 a classic or modern timeline.

First Look: He has green eyes. And homing attack.

Question: Would it make sense for Sonic 4 to be part of modern timeline?

Answer: Sure, why not.

And that's my stand. Part of me just wishes to ignore this stupid split, but if it must be here then both Classic Sonic went through "1,2,3&K,CD, (Sonic Generations) Mania" while Modern "every main game except Mania" (plus spin-off, but that's easy to sort). It's really the easiest way

I wholly agree with this. There is no evidence that Sonic 4 episodes happened after 3&K or any other game really, apart from it being named Sonic 4. I just put it anywhere in the timeline... but my guess would be Sonic 4 eps happened after Generations or Lost World (IF THEY ARE CANON) rather than immediately after 3&K. Even if you won' t take this into account, Death Egg mk.II looks very different to the Death Egg in Forces.

 

9 hours ago, Tracker_TD said:

That and the Death Egg in Forces is blatantly just the Sonic 3 one - the Sonic 3 Act 1 boss even appears in the background at points and it shares basically all of the level gimmicks in Classic's case.

It may share the gimmicks, but the level itself is very shallow compared to 3&K.