Sonic Forces

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There is too much wrong with Sonic Forces to recommend it to everyone, but if you’re hankering for 3D Sonic, and you’ve finished every other Sonic game, then check it out on sale.

There's certainly something in Sonic Forces for fans of the franchise and there are some steps in the right direction. However, the story, world, and characters never come together into a cohesive whole.

Sonic Forces is a flawed and unremarkable game, despite occasionally providing moments of decent enjoyment.

The saying “Too many cooks spoil the broth” certainly rings true with Sonic Forces. It’s a game where despite it’s many level types none of them quite leave a lasting impression. As a result, it comes off as merely average in all departments with the sole exception being the visual design. Sonic Forces is far from the train wreck that Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was, but it doesn’t come close to reigniting  the series’ magic in the way Sonic Mania did.

We get the impression that Sonic Team wanted Forces to be the Best Sonic Game Ever, with a Greatest Hits package of everything good in the series, but they didn’t have the time, money or talent to accomplish this. The 2D sections control poorly, and the 3D sections sport the same problems that the series has had since Sonic Adventure – such as dying if you don’t play the level exactly as the designer intended. There’s fun to be had, but even then Forces feels so cheap and abrupt that ...

While I see potential in Sonic Forces, the execution just isn’t there, especially with the Switch edition. In the future I really hope Sega reinvents the wheel, taking a more Mario Odyssey adventure approach. The whole level-based 3D “thing” hasn’t worked out so frequently that it’s worth a shot.

Introduce your own hideous character into the Sonicverse.

Sonic Forces is the latest in a long line of 3D Sonic games that have been nothing but a disappointment. Only its melodramatic soundtrack bristling with vocalised tracks deserves any praise. It feels like a game bereft of any clear direction; a mish-mash of ideas poorly glued together in the hope that something will stick. Sonic Forces may not be the worst Sonic game ever made, but it’s close, and I don’t think the speedy blue hedgehog has many more chances to impress before gamers like myself lose all hope of him returning to his former glory.

Sonic Forces is a rush job that lacks the charm and attention to detail found in the blue blur’s better titles. Don’t bother looking for a solid platformer here - the fact that the developers didn’t care means that you shouldn’t either.

Sonic Forces is a fever dream of fan-fiction that is awkward to play but still manages to be trashy fun.

Sonic Forces creators’ good intentions and interesting ideas don’t amount to much in a game so clumsy and limited in design. It certainly doesn’t help that Forces follows right on the heels of Sonic Mania, a game that not only demonstrated a more focused design sensibility but also did a far better job of realizing its creators’ ambitions. Forces may have had a larger budget than Mania, but it feels like the poorer creation all around. Unless your dearest dream has always been to play a Sonic game as your own original fan art character, Sonic Forces doesn’t have much to offer.