In July of 2016, Sonic Team held an event at Comic-Con, where they revealed both Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, which went by the name Project Sonic 2017 at the time. The news spread quickly, and many were excited for both games to release. Sonic Mania was scheduled to release Spring of 2017, but was later delayed to August 2017, just 3 months before the release of Sonic Forces. Sonic Mania was VERY well received, some even calling it, "The best Sonic game in 20 years". On the other hand, Sonic Forces did not do as well. Most users on this site might know that I have grew up with the Sonic franchise and that I enjoy a majority of its games, but where would I put this one compared to all the rest, and is it worth a buy? Let's get right into this.

Graphics - 10
Sonic Forces is the first game in the series to use Hedgehog Engine 2, a new engine developed by Sonic Team themselves. The engine took about 2 years to develop. Being the most recent Sonic game with the most recent and advanced engine, it would be only natural that the game would actually look like it was made in 2017. I'm happy to say that this is one of, if not the best looking Sonic game out on the market right now. Most of the gameplay looks just as good as the cutscenes, and there's so much stuff in the background that it even tends to distract me from time to time just because it's so detailed. For example, take the Null Space stage. In the background, you can see all manners of battleships and aircrafts in a struggle against the enemy. Essentially, it's a huge battle going on right beside you as you are running your way to the goal. It all looks beautiful and I hope to see detail like this in the next entry in the franchise. 

Sound - 7
Here is where the review is going to start to get divisive. You see, Sonic Forces is a very strange game, you either really hate it or you really love it. Some people just don't know what their opinion of the game is in the first place because they can't decide. The majority of the music in this game is amazing, as usual for this franchise. However, the music and sound team decided to go a different route with the music in this game compared to the other games. In Modern Sonic's levels, you will usually find sort of almost dubstep sounding tracks, with synths being the main instrument used. In the custom character's levels, you will usually find the same thing, but with lyrics put on top. In Classic Sonic's levels, you get a really poor attempt at recreating the original Genesis soundfont. Listen to Green Hill's level music and let me know what you think of it. This is the first time I have ever truly hated music in a Sonic game, Classic Sonic's level music is just plain awful. I find myself enjoying a lot of Modern Sonic's portion of music the most, and the custom hero's portion of music is alright. There are also some really well made orchestrated tracks spread throughout the game. 

Addictiveness - 3
Okay, here we go. This game is not very fun. It can be at certain moments in the game, but the majority of the game is just playing itself for the most part. There's even a level that you can finish just by holding down the boost button and jumping at the right time, no character movement needed. Most levels have a very linear path that just goes in one direction, forward. There are some levels that invite exploration, such as Mortar Canyon and Null Space, but for the most part, it's just one path to the goal with some levels having one or two extra shortcuts. Comparing to Sonic Generations, where every level had many ways to reach the goal, this was a huge letdown. In addition to this, this game has the occasional quick time event. Now, I don't mind quick time events as long as they are actually unique and difficult. Sonic Forces has neither of those traits. It is just a simple button push, and nothing more. When initiating the Double Boost mechanic with Modern Sonic and the custom hero, all you do is repeatedly press the Y button until you take off. Even if you fail this prompt, the end result is the same, and you still Double Boost. In the end, I can only recall a few good moments where I actually had fun with this game.

Story - 6
Believe it or not, Sonic Mania is a prequel to Sonic Forces. If you know the ending to Sonic Mania, then it segways into Classic Sonic appearing in Modern Sonic's world in Forces. Sonic Team decided to retcon that Classic Sonic is Modern Sonic's younger self, and instead make him from an alternate world. This decision was most likely made as both an excuse to have Classic Sonic appear in Sonic Forces as well as have more standalone Classic Sonic games without ruining the timeline. A backstory that tells events that happened in Modern Sonic's world before Forces gives us details on how new villain Infinite became what he did in the Episode Shadow DLC. The Episode Shadow DLC is only 3 levels long and I won't say how Infinite becomes as powerful as he does, but it really is not as glamorous as it led everyone on to be. At the beginning of Forces, Tails informs Sonic that Eggman is attacking the city, so he rushes over to stop him. This time however, Eggman brought Infinite with him, and Infinite, along with returning characters Metal Sonic, Shadow, Zavok, and Chaos, swiftly beat the hell out of Sonic and bring him to the newly rebuilt Death Egg, where they "torture him for months". (Yet he shows no signs of torture. This was an English only addition to make the story more edgy or something if I had to guess.) Now that Sonic has finally been defeated, Eggman proceeds to take over 99% of the world. For months, everyone presumed Sonic was dead, and Tails got depression, even though he shows no signs of it. Here is one of my biggest issues, if you are going to have a character plot point like this why not show it in action instead of just expecting us to believe it because someone said so. Classic Sonic eventually meets up with Tails and they go off in search of Sonic. Meanwhile, the resistance that was formed to fight back against Eggman gets a new recruit, and that new recruit is you, your own custom character. This would have been cool if I was around 8 or 9 years old, but I'm not, so it didn't really hit home for me. Eventually, the resistance finds Sonic and saves him, and they proceed to help get their world back, piece by piece. They face off against Infinite a couple times during the story too. This story sounds pretty good on paper, right? Well, in execution, Sonic Team manages to screw it up. It's hard to explain in words exactly how they screwed up, so I advise you to look up a video of all of the cutscenes in the game to get a good idea. And even then, what good is a story if the gameplay isn't even that good?

Depth - 4
The main campaign of this game has 30 levels, with around 6 or 7 of them being boss battles.The main campaign is roughly 3 hours long. In each level, there are 5 red star rings, 5 bingo numbers, and 5 moon medals to collect, which does add some value of replayability. At least it would, if they actually did something. The most the red rings will do for you is unlock a secret level once you collect enough, but these secret levels usually only last about 30 seconds. That's a thing I forgot to mention, most of the levels in Sonic Forces last around 1 or 2 minutes. This leaves the player wanting more, and it makes me sad to see the beta version of these levels, because they seem longer and better than the final product. The bingo numbers and the moon medals don't unlock anything, they are only to brag. Then again, why would you want to brag about wasting your time on this game? The only thing that's actually neat to unlock is all the clothing you can get for your custom character, but it's just aesthetics. There is a TON of options for your character, though, and they did a really good job of making sure someone could really create their OC or just any character in general. I made Sans.

Difficulty - 2
This is just sad. This game is pathetically easy. And there's a couple good reasons for that. When you start the game, you are given a chocie between Normal mode and Hard mode. Problem is, there is no difference, and Hard mode is not hard whatsoever. There is no lives system in this game, so whenever you die, you can just retry at the last checkpoint you passed as many times as you like. This in itself creates another issue, though. It gives rings no meaning. Collecting rings does nothing but improve your score, and let's be real, is anyone really trying to compete for highest score in a Sonic game in 2017? Collecting 100 rings does nothing, since there is no lives system. There is absolutely no reason to go after any rings. With Sonic Unleashed and Generations, I always found some difficult spots in the game, but with Sonic Forces, the only difficulty I found was the awful controls. That's right, they forgot how to make controls good. I always found myself falling down bottomless pits because the controls were so awkward. 

Overall - 5
Wow, what a disappointment this game was. Most people, including me, were very excited for this game, only to be completely disappointed in the end. My biggest issue with this game is how much potential it had. This game had so much potential hidden within it, but that potential is missed and it ends up becoming a mediocre game that many now consider one of the worst in the franchise. Fun fact: when they revealed this game they advertised it as being created by the same people who made Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations. This was a total lie. Everyone on the dev team was either new or only worked on Sonic Lost World. I have no idea why they would lie to us like that. Rumors about the next mainline game are starting to spread, and the hot rumor right now is that the next game will be announced some time next month. I hope it's true, because I am absolutely read to finally leave this game behind and just let it get covered with dust, as I will never be returning to this game, that's for sure.

This review was very nice, I'll admit Forces isn't that good of a game, I thought Infinite was gonna be a cool character but he's pretty Shadow the Hedgehog if a 12 year old DeviantArt user created him, with motives that were....kinda stupid. I had very high hopes for Infinite with his theme, sounded like he had a very interesting past that would be used with this theme, though unfortunately that wasn't the case.

What a waste of a character and a game.

Sans was the best character in Sonic Forces if I'm being honest.

And the more I learn about Sonic Forces the more mediocre it sounds. Probably wont get it unless it becomes like, really cheap or something.

I keep on hearing about how awful the controls are. Mind elaborating? I want to understand why xp

The review was good, though I will say that it'd be nice to see you try and deviate from the review structure a bit on the next one. Just something to try and develop your reviewing style so to speak.

ZeroTails :

Have you played Sonic Generations before? You know how when playing as Modern Sonic he feels like a tank? It's like that except the acceleration of the character goes from 1 to 100 in an instant, making precise platforming hell for the player.

And yeah, I'll try doing that. I've always thought about adding in a extra section like Gameplay or something so I can talk about it more. kind of like reviewing this way cause it helps keeps things extra organized.