Sonic Forces is a strange mash-up of great ideas with poor execution. The premise is simple, and definitely shows signs of excellence. You play as your own custom made character, and set out to defeat Eggman. And Sonic Forces sure has a great look to it, and truly feels inspired. Sadly, where the game lets you down is in its speed – it’s a bit too fast for it’s own good.
Let’s talk about the good first, because there is a lot here to really like about Sonic Forces.
The character customization is really well done. There are a good variety of options to pick from, and the level of customization is outright wacky. So wacky in-fact that you’d find it hard to make a plain looking character. Tinkering with the character creator and making my own Sonic themed character is an absolute delight.
It’s a bit too fast for it’s own good.
Sonic Forces also looks fantastic. Levels are varied, and there are tons of visual details that pop out across stages. Moving through them is immensely fun. The problem is that the levels themselves are fairly short, and at the speed that you move, it’s all over really quickly.
And that’s the biggest issue with Sonic Forces. Short levels, and you speeding across them. Short levels leads to a lack of more variety within them, and also makes it hard for the stages to really build up on potential design ideas. They get over really fast, especially given the speeds that your character moves at.
Tinkering with the character creator and making my own Sonic themed character is an absolute delight.
And that’s another issue – you move so fast that it’s often hard to see the dangers coming ahead. This is not always an issue, only when the camera is in a 2D side-scroller perspective. When the camera is behind you and you’re moving in 3D, it’s actually really fun to see the obstacles ahead of you and react quickly to them. Sadly, the levels get over way too soon, and you never get the time to really enjoy them.
Despite these issues, boss fights are still really great. They offer a decent challenge, without overstaying their welcome. I only wish there were more. I really did like the variety to the fights, and each feels unique and different to the other. This is also due to the variety in the levels themselves which all feel different from each other.
The levels get over way too soon.
Sonic Forces sure has issues, but for the most part, there’s a lot good here to enjoy. It’s almost as if the problems negate each other out. The levels are short, but they make the unforeseeable deaths less frustrating. I really hope that they build on the design ideas implemented here, and we get a direct sequel that expands on everything Sonic Forces does well, while fixing the issues.
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