For those of you who don't know anything about Sonic the Hedgehog, it's a multi-media franchise starring Sonic the Hedgehog, a dark-blue anthropomorphic hedgehog with the power of super speed and a carefree attitude created by SEGA, with most of the video games being developed by Sonic Team. The franchise covers basically everything from comics to video games to even anime (but is a video game franchise first and foremost). The more recent entries in the franchise often suffer from some seriously questionable design choices and still hasn't recovered from the infamous Sonic '06 game, which was so bad that many people have lost faith in the franchise. And I know how bad Sonic '06 is, because I actually played that game myself. And yeah. It was pretty bad. Not only was that game a glitch-ridden mess, but the story was also cliche at best and just plain nonsensical at worst (that game's only redeeming factor is it marks the debut of Silver, one of my personal favorite supporting characters). But this is a massive franchise, and in order for the whole franchise to be bad in my book you need at least half of the games to be bad objectively. In my experience the only games that are objectively "bad" are Sonic '06 and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (the former being a glitchy mess with a downright absurd story, and the latter being a cheap cash-grab designed to promote the Sonic Boom TV Show on Cartoon Network). Heck, even games that many detractors (blindly) claim are terrible are actually decent, like Sonic & the Black Knight and Sonic Unleashed. Of course, I'm speaking from personal experience. And before anyone says "Oh, Spencer's just being a total fanboy and defending this garbage". I'm not. I will admit there have been some terrible games in the franchise. I'm instead making the argument that while it's okay to have an opinion, having an UNINFORMED opinion is bad. Which is why you should never criticize anything without at least doing your homework. Says the guy who (jokingly) bashes Twilight at regular intervals, despite never watching a full episode at all. So... #DoubleStandard?
All things considered, Sonic Forces is a decent game. It's not the best game in the franchise *cough cough* Sonic Colors *cough cough*, but it's still an enjoyable experience that has some neat level designs, an AMAZING soundtrack, and a plot so nonsensical that I can't shake this feeling that SEGA wanted the story to be as deliberately corny as humanly possible. It's actually rather funny. The promotional material made it out to be darker and more mature in tone than the other Sonic games, but the story is so (intentionally?) silly it's actually the most lighthearted entry.
The story of Sonic Forces starts off on a serious note. Longtime frenemy Dr. Ivo "The Eggman" Robotnik starts causing mischief AGAIN, and Sonic zooms in to save the day. Only this time he gets his spiky blue butt pounded into the ground by brand new villain Infinite, who possesses the ability to warp reality Q style (you're officially awesome if you understand the reference) and is faster than Sonic (but is Infinite faster than *Dr. Eggman?). Sonic is then literally killed in the game's opening minutes (unless you're playing the Japanese version, where he simply goes MIA). Now I know what your're thinking, "Wait, Sonic is dead? Well you know what that means! Time Travel shenanigans!". NOPE. This little tidbit is part of a English/America-induced plot-hole that I'll talk about later. But anyway, to prove how over reliant everyone is for Sonic to save them, his six months of absence is enough to let Dr. Robotnik TAKE OVER THE ENTIRE PLANET. Good Job, Eggman! After 26 years of getting your mustachioed face pummeled by brightly colored anthropomorphic animals, he finally takes over the world. Kudos for him for accomplishing his goals in life!
I guess you could say this guy's possibilities are...
Infinite. I'll see myself out now.
But some corny banter between Knuckles the Echidna (Sonic's friend/rival), Silver the Hedgehog (STILL my favorite supporting character), and some other characters later, we learn that Sonic is not dead (or, in the Japanese version, taken prisoner) aboard Eggman's space fortress, the imaginatively named Death Egg, where Dr. Eggman breaks the first rule of being a supervillain. Keeping the main hero (or a friend of the main hero) prisoner and not killing them outright, or at the very least Sonic-proof the Death Egg. As one can imagine, Sonic escapes almost effortlessly with the aide of a new character, that you, the player, gets to create/customize at the beginning of the game.
Yes you read that correctly. The most controversial design choice in Sonic Forces by far is the addition of creating your own character. Some video games benefit from having a customizable avatar, while others are ruined by it. While it is not really needed for this game, the addition of it leads to some inherently funny moments. Beating a reality warping, masked fox/jackal? Awesome. Beating a reality warping, masked fox/jackal as a wolf teen (as apposed to a Teen Wolf!?) dressed in 90's era hipster/grunge clothes? Hilarious. Saving Sonic's life from a black hole? Awesome. Saving Sonic's life from a black hole as a wolf teen in a dapper tuxedo and a Phantom of the Opera style mask? Hysterical. The Custom Character in Sonic Forces works similarly to the Custom Hero from Dragon Ball Xenoverse, in the sense that even though the main hero of the franchise still manages to keep up with the Custom Heroes, it's ultimately the Custom Hero's story. It's their journey. Take the Custom Character in this game. Early on in the game it's revealed that they are one of the few survivors of Infinite's rampages, and only survived because Infinite getting the bright idea of letting them live because traumatizing teenage(?) cartoon animals is Infinite's favorite hobby, apparently. The Custom Hero eventually overcomes his/her fear of Infinite, beat the tar out of him TWICE and fulfills their childhood dream of... Becoming a furry version of Spider-Man? Okay.
Gotta go fast!
Overall the story was corny, but done in such a way that it was legitimately entertaining. Plus, who here actually plays the Sonic games for the story? The main appeal has always been going ridiculously fast, grabbing collectibles, and some dang-crazy music blaring in the background. But that said, there are some annoyances story wise that bug me. Firstly, and the most glaring issue, is the addition of Classic Sonic. Early on in the story, thanks to... Reasons... Classic Sonic comes back. While seeing Classic Sonic interact with his modern-day self in Sonic Generations was neat and a clever idea that hits longtime fans in the nostalgia, here, he feels shoehorned in for the sake of pandering. Seriously, the game's story would have played out almost exactly the same even if Classic Sonic didn't show up at all. That is a big no-no. Why is it a big no-no? Simply put, appealing to long-time fans can only get you so far economically. Eventually they'll either get bored of the pandering and stop investing money/time into the product or they'll realize that they've been milked for all the cash they're worth and stop investing due to perceived greediness.
From left to right; Chaos, Metal Sonic, Shadow,
and Zavok.
Another issue I have is how the villainous team pictured above were handled. They were hyped up as a kind of Sinister Six style team of fan-favorite villains (and Zavok, for some reason). Now don't get me wrong, I am eccentric that they brought back Chaos, or at least I was until Sonic Forces commits the greatest crime, nay, the greatest sin, in video gaming... Having an antagonist defeated in a cutscene without a boss battle. This is true for Shadow as well, but it's lame because we haven't had Chaos in a major Sonic game for years (his cameo in Generations does not count). And this cliche happens absurdly often in video games nowadays and it is the single most infuriating cliche ever. What's even worse is SPOILER ALERT!!! These aren't even the real characters. Just holograms Infinite cooked up because he's a lonely teen emo and he thinks hanging out with bad guys makes him cool.
Now onto something that's more silly than infuriating. The English-induced plot hole I mentioned. You see, in the Japanese version (which by virtue of SEGA being a Japanese company, is the "correct" version), none of the main cast know what happened to Sonic after his initial encounter with Infinite. In the English version, everyone except for Amy Rose (Sonic's not-girlfriend) is absolutely certain that Sonic is dead. Then the game doesn't even bother with the idea of Sonic being dead by them discovering two seconds later that Sonic is alive and (apparently?) being tortured. And when we see Sonic after all this, he's still as happy-go-lucky as ever and DOESN'T EVEN SHOW SIGNS OF BEING EVEN REMOTELY INJURED. I know, I know, they can't give Sonic "boo-boos" (cringe!) because it's a kids' game. But unless they did some kind of mind probing or forced Sonic to binge-watch every episode of Twilight, he should have some wear-and-tear. And the real kicker here is in the Japanese version, Sonic was never being "tortured" to begin with. They just locked him up in what amounts to a poor man's Death Star for six months and called it a day. Another English-induced plot hole revolves around how the custom character can cancel out Infinite's reality warp. In the Japanese version, it's because early on the custom character picked up a special crystal, and since Infinite is powered by a similar crystal, the two cancel each other like two matching magnets pushing each other away. None of this is explained in the English version, as the scene is literally just Infinite going "How can you do that cool thing that only I can do!? No matter, I'll just be a lonely teen emo somewhere else!".
That said, I do like how Eggman has finally learned from his previous mistakes. Now this is spoiler territory so if are the 5% of people that actually care about the story in a Sonic game, skip this paragraph. You see, in most games in the franchise, the way Dr. Robotnik is defeated is Sonic (and friends) destroy whatever is powering Eggman's latest invention, normally some kind of magic gemstone. Eggman has finally learned after 26 years to not only up the security around the thingy powering his inventions, but to install a backup power generator in case the first one actually gets destroyed. And he has a backup for that backup, only the third backup is the game's FINAL BOSS and is fully capable of fighting back. Also, am I the only one that though the final boss looks like a Xenomorph from the Alien franchise? No? Just me? Okay then.
Okay, the spoilers are over now. Now let's talk about this guy, Infinite. First off, he looks like a Noivern from Pokemon X & Y but during a teen emo phase. Which is a good thing. Infinite, as a character, is so unapologetically emo, both in design and in personality, that I feel like he exists to poke fun at how some of the more... Passionate... Fans of the franchise like making it darker and edgier without really understanding how to tell a mature and thoughtful story without making it cringy. Anyway, Infinite is actually a pretty good villain in my book. Yeah, he's a lonely teen emo and he acts like a 12-year-old child on a power trip, but that combination, while normally a recipe for a bland and forgettable character, was executed so smoothly(?) that Infinite is unironically the best thing in the game. So please SEGA. Bring him back in the next main series Sonic game. I don't care if you have to retcon this game's entire story as long as you bring him back. Oh, and he has the best voice acting in the game, as his voice actor, Liam O'Brien, manages to combine a cool, icy purr in his voice with some genuinely clever and intimidating (for a kids game!) lines, such as "I wonder if this world can offer me a challenge ...And as if to answer, the world brings to me a trembling child.". My only gripe with Infinite as a character is the Episode Shadow DLC they released shortly after this game, which is a semi-prequel starring (surprise!) Shadow the Hedgehog (who is basically a cooler version of Sonic. Is it sad I like Shadow as a character more than the Blue Blur himself?), which revealed his origin story. And it was... Anticlimactic, to say the least. But as long as you don't play Episode Shadow, you get a cool and mysterious villain, but once you do play it, you realize he really is just a lonely teen emo.
Also I just have to get this out of the way, but Tails. Anyone remember back when Tails was competent and actually was helpful? Sonic Forces obviously doesn't! Tails spends the entire game doing nothing helpful and spends basically the entire game spouting some of the corniest dialogue I've ever heard in a video game, and cowering behind the stronger characters. Heck, 90% of the main cast lose most of their competency. The only characters that do something useful, not counting the playable characters for obvious reasons, are Silver, who manages to fight Infinite to a standstill, and even then he passed out from exhaustion, and Knuckles, who serves as the mission control. Also, how convenient that this story is nearing the apocalypse and nobody thinks about getting the Chaos Emeralds or Blaze the Cat, both of whom could have greatly helped in undoing Eggman's tyranny, and have done so several times? Especially since the former is a series staple, and the latter is a fan-favorite character? And while the thought's in my head, the two characters that actually do pull their weight (Knuckles and Silver) are kind of ironic. After being mocked for years for being one of the most gullible supporting characters in modern fiction (Eggman tricked him into doing his dirty work not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES throughout the franchise! And a fourth time if we count the anime!), Knuckles is the leader of the Resistance that's been trying to overthrow Eggman. And Silver, most famous for his signature line, "IT'S NO USE!!!", is telling us all to not give up hope. So I guess 11 years after his debut, it actually IS use? Not sure why it took 11 years for it to become use, but I'll take it.
And that covers my thoughts on the story, now on to gameplay. There are four major gameplay styles, Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic, Custom Character, and Tag-Team. Modern Sonic plays exactly how he plays in Sonic Colors (which is always a plus, since that's my favorite Sonic game), switching between 3D racing segments and 2D platforming at regular intervals. These make up the bulk of the game. Classic Sonic plays eerily similar to the 16-bit era games from back in the day, but slightly modernized. The Custom Character is the most interesting. Like Modern Sonic, they're stages consist of 3D racing and 2D platforming, but in a twist, the Custom Character can't use the Boost ability, which is Sonic's bread and butter. But to compensate the Custom Character can use a variety of gadgets to not only fight enemies but also navigate the stage, with some areas requiring you to use a specific gadget. Also, neat little touch but the Custom Character actually can't run anywhere near as fast as Sonic, but they use a grappling hook to swing around Spider-Man style to keep up with him. And the Tag-team stages are the rarest of the bunch, but they somehow can make linear corridors exciting and fun instead of tedious and boring, thanks to a mechanic known as Double Boost, which, to put in bluntly, turns the game into A FREAKING ANIME!!! Seriously, when Double Boost triggers, not only are you invincible and insta-destroy any enemy you touch, but they play a rock song that sounds suspiciously similar to the opening of a shonen anime series. But aside from the Double Boost, it plays similar to Sonic Heroes for the Gamecube, with you switching between Sonic's (not-so)unrivaled speed and the sheer power of the Custom Character's gadgets.
The Modern Sonic stages were fun, although they were a little simplistic. It was incredibly satisfying to Boost through stages back when the idea was created in Sonic Unleashed, and they have refined that style to near-perfection here. The best example would be the Egg Gate stage, where Sonic is blitzing through outer space. The only problem with the Modern Sonic stages is aside from Egg Gate, the rest of Modern Sonic's stages are actually kind of bland, but not necessarily terrible.
The Custom Character gets by far the best stages, without a doubt. In my personal opinion, the best moment of the whole game was in Capital City, where the Custom Character has to Spider-Man their way through Eggman's City/Base/Fortress, while Infinite stalks them and warps reality in some clever ways, such as creating giant illusionary monsters, causing deathtraps to spawn right in front of you or even altering the flow of gravity. But a runner-up for best stage in the game would also be Aqua Road, where the Custom Character navigates a perilous jungle by... Riding a Waterslide? Okay, whatever works. That level is annoying to 100% given the water currents make grabbing those collectibles a luck-based mission, but the level itself was fun and memorable. Then there was Imperial Tower, a late game stage also for the Custom Character where you have to parkour your way to the top of a tower to stop Eggman's doomsday weapon. While this stage was difficult, it was still distinct and memorable due to it's "race against time" nature. It's also the only stage where you could wall jump, for some strange reason. That's my only gripe with the Custom Character stages. You use the Wall Jump mechanic exactly once, very late into the game, even though they could have used bounce pads/springs instead. Honestly that might be the most perplexing thing about the gameplay. I have a sneaking feeling that the wall jump mechanic was meant to used more frequently in the game, but was cut out (it's not a Sonic Team game without needlessly cut content, amirite!?) save for this one instance, but were too lazy to remove it completely from the source code so they slapped a hint telling you how to wall jump and called it a day.
And last but not least is Classic Sonic. *sigh* They were arguably the worst levels in the game for me, personally. The reason why? Classic Sonic doesn't have any of the abilities of the other two characters, which, while understandable for nostalgia-pandering, has the side-effect of making Classic Sonic feel rushed or underdeveloped. The controls for Classic Sonic are also really awkward, having one of the stiffest jumps I have ever seen in a video game, along with him having some very slippery movement. Classic Sonic also has the most poorly balanced stages, at least in the late game. Iron Fortress is a prime example of how NOT to make a stage in a Sonic game. In addition to the stage being littered with homing missile launchers, there's an autoscroll segment. In case you don't know what an autoscroll segment is, it's a video game design technique used in platformers, where the camera slides in one direction regardless of the player character's location. The problem here is given the way Classic Sonic's physics and controls work, precision platforming is already difficult, and the autoscroll is borderline broken, resulting in a stage that feels like it should belong in a rage game (rage games are video games designed to infuriate the player, by the way). Seriously, and I kid you not, that stage took me 10 minutes just on that one segment (for a point of reference, most stages are 3 minutes long). And even when I cleared it, it felt less like a overcame a difficult challenge and more like I cleared it with sheer dumb luck.
As for the Custom Character itself, I was genuinely surprised by how much I liked it. When they announced the character creation, my initial reaction was "Why is this a thing?". Now it's "Hey, this is actually the second best thing to come out of this game." The first, as I explained above, is Infinite. But anyway, the customization options are surprisingly deep. You get to choose what kind of animal (sadly, there's no "goat" option), the gender (only difference being girls get eyelashes, so if you want you could have a dude wear a dress), the color of everything, and the clothing. All of this is purely cosmetic, except for the Wispon. Wispons being the aforementioned gadgets used by the Custom Character.. You unlock different types as you progress, and they add a little replay value to the game. After all, there are some areas/collectibles that are locked off to specific Wispons.
Bro Fist with Sonic!
As for the presentation, the visuals aren't amazing, but they are decent. Each stage is packed with little details and things going on in the background, but Sonic (and friends) often move, ironically, too fast to let you take in just what you're looking at. Unless you go to Youtube or something and freeze frame everything. The character designs are the most standout things in the game, thanks to modernizing the character design style. I will say that the fur on the main cast looks more akin to felt, which makes Eggman's mustache, which is the only thing in the game rendered in individual hairs, stand out a little too much. But on the bright side, any customizations you made to the Custom Character carry over into cutscenes, which is nice, because they could have pulled a Fire Emblem Fates and have all the cutscenes with Corrin/Corinne take place in either a first person perspective or obscure the facial regions because Intelligent Systems couldn't be bothered to incorporate any customizations the player made in that game.
As for the sound, the voice acting for the English dub has either good voice acting but bizarre lines, good lines but bizarre delivery, or some combination of the two. The only characters who don't have awkward dialogue are Shadow the Hedgehog, Rouge the Bat, and of course, Infinite. Yes, even Sonic has some awkward moments. And by that I'm referring to the fact he feels the need to lecture the villains (and to a lesser extent the audience) on The Power of FRIENDSHIP!tm not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. What's sadder, the fact that he's so on-the-nose about it, or the fact that SEGA felt that humanity as a species need this message hammered into our skulls so badly? That said, Infinite's voice actor had an amazing performance, and I already described his performance above, so I won't repeat myself. However, for some reason, Tails has the worst voice acting in the game, and I know I've been picking on Tails a lot in this review and I'm so sorry to any Tails fans out there but hear me out. Tails, despite being the token smart guy, has some grammar problems with his sentences and as such they're filled with redundancy, the biggest offender being "[in response to the Final Boss being powered by the Phantom Ruby] "But that means the Phantom Ruby no longer has a vulnerable power supply! An invulnerable ruby?" and just before that, "Your courage and heroism must have triggered the prototype!" (which is a load of malarkey, Eggman literally said anyone can use a Phantom Ruby if they are the first person to touch it). I don't know what was going on with Tails' voice actor/actress (can't tell if Tails is played by a child actor or if he's voiced by a woman. Probably the latter, video game voice casts always cast girls to play the role of little kid characters), but they just didn't sound passionate about their performance. It sounded more like they were reading a (poorly worded) script out loud, and that kills immersion for me when the voice actors/actresses aren't even motivated to play their roles right.
The music however, is pretty dang good. It consists mostly of not-90's era pop rock with a little bit of metal thrown in. The music in Sonic Forces is not really good to listen to by itself, ESPECIALLY Infinite's personal theme, which can best be described as **"Ow the Edge" in song form, but it makes mundane tasks more enjoyable. The game's main theme, Fist Bump, is so eerily similar to the opening of an anime it's actually pretty funny.
Overall, Sonic Forces is not a terrible game, and I did find enjoyment with this game, but the story is a little bit corny, but considering that Sonic calls out some of the more absurd aspects ("Why would they create an illusion mimicking something that already isn't real?"), I have a feeling they were going with deliberate corn. I didn't mention it earlier, but there were some really disappointing moments during the story, namely Null Space, a late game stage that starts off with a cool and unique idea that I won't spoil here, and in the span of 38.4 seconds (sadly, I'm not making that up), they almost immediately throw the idea away in favor of a generic city stage. It begs the question why Sonic Team came up with the idea in the first place.
But the worst I can say about this game is it has wasted potential. And if the success of Sonic Mania is any indication, it seems that the best Sonic the Hedgehog video games are ones were SEGA hands the IP over to anyone who is NOT Sonic Team. I hate to be that way, but Sonic Team's philosophy has always been "pump out dozens of games in a short time frame using a easily marketable premise and as low a budget as possible", but of course, kids aren't going to fret the details. And that's kind of the point. This is, at the end of the day, a KIDS game. Children were the primary audience of the franchise and will almost always be that way. Sonic Forces is a good game to play with with your children (if you have any) and it's just a fun, family friendly adventure to entertain you for about 5-10 hours (depending if you just breeze through the game or not. Some folks can beat this game in just 2 hours!), so after a serious mental debate I give it a 7/10. It has some flaws, but if like Sonic the Hedgehog, it's worth picking up after a price drop or sale, because even though the game is not bad, there isn't enough "good" stuff here to justify a full 60$ or heck, even a $40 price tag. That said, I can think of a few ways of "fixing" Sonic Forces, but my proposals would not only be extremely demanding and clash with Sonic Team's "quantity over quality" philosophy, but would be so extensive that it would have to be a post in and of itself. But would you want me to fix this game? Leave a comment reading #FixSonic or something. Take over social media! Show the Internet there's still hope for the Blue Blur! Don't let this become the next Sonic '06!
*- The joke here is despite Sonic claiming he's the fastest thing alive, and while he does prove that time and time again, there are several moments, especially in the older games where various characters inexplicably outrun Sonic, most infamously was the scene in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 when Eggman, who was knocked out of his mecha, manages to escape, by running just fast enough to make sure Sonic couldn't catch up with him (keep in mind Eggman didn't have anything that could give him super speed and aside from having an IQ of 300, he's just a normal human). This was a side-effect of gameplay-story segregation since this escape scene was scripted and this was before the concept of cutscenes were invented, so this was programmed in just to make sure the player wouldn't inadvertently end the game early.
**- In case you don't understand the joke, Shadow the Hedgehog's name happens to be an anagram for "ow, the edge", a phrase used to mock something, usually a work of fiction, for trying to tell a mature, thoughtful story but falling flat on it's face.
