Sonic Forces Review

Sonic Forces is a mixed-bag of a game that suffers from major problems in plot, gameplay, dialogue and voice acting, not to mention the pacing of the game itself. Coming in at just over 3 hours of gameplay, the game doesn’t offer a great value proposition for players, nor does it offer enough enjoyable Sonic gameplay to make up for its £34.99 Steam price tag. Amidst news of serious PC port problems, the fact that the game itself is so mediocre will come as little comfort to any Sonic fan such that the inclusion of the Avatar character is merely a band-aid on a gaping wound.

I want, badly, to love Sonic Forces. There is just enough charm in its presentation; its graphics being out of this world, along with many amusing call-backs and references to games gone past, that I wish that the game itself was a more fulfilling experience. But it’s hard to love a game that is just so crushingly mediocre, with so many bad-decisions souring every step forward that the game attempts to make.

The storyline of Sonic Forces was always going to be a point of contention and mixed reviews; Sonic the Hedgehog is never known for his involved plots, but the oft-cringeworthy story on show here is seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel. The plot details a world where Sonic was defeated, allowing Eggman to all but take over the world. This seems interesting at first, but there are so many plot mis-steps that there are just no pay-offs. Any promising threads of storyline are quickly thrown out, almost as if the writer had a tiny attention span. The result is that nothing about the characters or the plot make any emotive effect to the storyline. Sonic’s seeming ‘death’ at the start is dealt with literally a few seconds later and revealed as a fake-out. The dark undertones of story involving war and even torture seem laughably out of place in a game where anthropomorphic characters use terms like ‘fist-bump’, ‘selfie’ and ‘true dat’, and fall terribly flat when such dialogue is delivered.

Sonic fans, however, would probably appreciate some aspects of the story, with just enough nods and winks toward the series’ past to get you by. The avatar character initially comes off as a terrible, cringe-worthy idea that encourages the worst elements of DeviantArt fandom. In the end, it’s only a little more than that, but the customisation is impressive enough that I even had a little fun with my character. Despite itself being an undoubtable mis-step, the avatar’s inclusion winds up being one of the best parts of the game, though its story is as hackneyed as lame fan-fiction.

The implementation of the gameplay itself is where the mixed-bag really starts to get jumbled up. Like the story, there are so few ideas taken through to their logical conclusion and little time to let them sink in. The shortness of the campaign is a problem because the gameplay itself never really gets going; by the time you experience any interesting challenge, the game is over.

The avatar and Classic Sonic stages are unfortunately the poorest elements of the gameplay. Classic Sonic himself winds up being strange to control, at times the controls are too stiff, but at other times they’re far too loose. The avatar on the other hand is rather fun to play, but the main problem is in the Wispon (itself a painfully-forced pun on ‘weapon’ and ‘wisp’). Many stages wind up requiring a different Wispon loadout than the one you pick, and often a player will be wishing they could anticipate the game’s design choices; this turns the avatar from a fun experience into a painful and unfair one. If only there was a ‘recommended Wispon’ graphic popping up on each level to alleviate this problem. Modern Sonic stages, ironically enough given the series history, wind up having the fewest problems; but that does not make them sin-free. Far too often these levels suffer from issues that should have been and have been mitigated against in previous Sonic games, so their presence here is simply inexcusable.

A special mention must go to the voice acting; there is one moment near the end of the game where it even sounds like the actors themselves have lost the will to go on. The line delivery at this point sounds like a shameful parody and it drives home the lacklustre nature of the package.

The best thing about Sonic Forces is in its presentation; the graphics look spectacular and some stages have enough of a wow factor to make you think that you are playing a better game. There is one sequence set in space that represented some astonishing visuals that can take your breath away. Unlike Sonic Boom, this game is relatively well-designed and runs smoothly. It is easy to achieve 60FPS in the gameplay and when in full motion it looks truly beautiful. It’s a shame that the cutscenes suffer from some clumsy porting issues, and the news of crashes on the PC version show that the game is far from perfect in the optimisation department. The production values are clearly high, but once again it’s a case where not enough care has been taken to ensure a consistent and thorough package.

Sonic Forces as a game is, as described, a huge mixed bag that represents a poor value proposition; though there are some great production efforts at work, at £34.99 the game itself is so poor in its implementation that there is little to justify such an asking price. The poor design, and mediocrity throughout the game means that it is difficult to recommend to anyone. If you are a Sonic fan, there may be enough here to sate you if you wait for the price to come down to around a third of what it is now, but if you have no love for the blue bomber, this entry in the franchise is something I wouldn’t pick up unless I was Forced to.

Classic Sonic's Sustainability

With this year marking the release of both Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, a worrying trend seems to have stuck itself to new Sonic games; that of leveraging ‘classic’ imagery and sentiment as a crutch to stay relevant. This isn’t entirely new, but it is an unsustainable method that will only yield returns for so long before we get tired.

Sonic Mania looks like a wonderful throwback to a time gone past, and looks well worth playing – the reviews of the game agree with this point. But the problem is in the game’s premise rather than its execution. It is part of a growing number of ‘flashback’ titles that leverage a desire for Sonic to ‘go back to his roots’ (a cliché phrasing of modern Sonic criticism if ever there was one).

How sustainable is this idea, really? Between Sonic 4 episodes 1 and 2, Sonic Generations, Sonic Mania, Classic Sonic’s return in Sonic Forces, not to mention a huge number of re-releases on virtual console systems, how much longer can SEGA milk what’s left of gamer’s nostalgia before gamers get bored of this trend? We can only see remakes and re-releases of Green Hill Zone so many times before it will inevitably lose its charm.

The unfortunate fact is that despite major positive steps forward in the form of Sonic Colours and Generations, the series still evokes an image of Bambi on ice, with shaky foundations that look so horribly precarious it’s almost hard to watch as the series goes on.

In its struggle for an identity in modern times, Sonic’s leveraging of its classics may have been a successful experiment, with the appearance of Classic Sonic in Generations and Forces, but now the trend is quickly becoming a tired trope. It’s time for gamers’ favourite hedgehog to drop these crutches and run – after all, isn’t this what Sonic is best known for?

More than anything, SEGA needs to reinvent Sonic’s identity, perhaps by looking at current Sonic conventions and throwing them out of the window. The transition wouldn’t be painless; many fans cling dearly to their nostalgic love of the ‘classic’ Sonic series that ended in the 90’s. But it won’t be long before this love runs out and instead we groan every time we see SEGA march out Classic Sonic only to expose him to further indignity. Let Classic Sonic rest now, and perhaps nail the final coffin in Modern Sonic’s grave, and give us a true reinvention of the character and his conventions before he winds up stuck in that grave permanently.