I got some 'alright that was neat' and 'this isn't bad' fun out of it. But once you're done with the short story and don't have the game hurriedly shoving you along to not give you time to smell the ashes of what could've been, you start seeing the seams and having to do all these optional missions and collectibles gets tedious beyond belief. Fuck these red star rings.
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B077DCRZGK/ Coming soon to Europe (at least): Sonic Forces & Puyo Pop Tetris bundle. The sheer quickness of this release means it MUST have been on the planning board before Forces even launched.
On the positive side, I still think the new short hop/boost leap thing is neat. It's not really used anything in the game but if the game actually tried to do anything in 3D the much slower fall speed would work well with leaping from one thing to another. The final Sonic stage in the game looks like it becomes absolutely trivial when you can just fly over it though but that's mostly due to the level only sloping downhill.
The refined controls take some time getting used to but speedrunning some stages works just fine. There's no soundtest though. And Green Hill stays Sand Hill it seems? That makes a good bundle. I'd buy that.
Oh I know about the Number and Moon stuff, they're obnoxious but not that big a deal. And they're solely for achievements anyway. I'm stuck on the 4th Red Ring for Chemical Plant and Death Egg as my last two of them all, both because I really hate Classic Sonic's gameplay in Forces and because no matter what I do I always seem to miss these two.
That path has been known for a while. I've used it for my run. You can access it by boosting, jump, air boost
I don't think that is an "unused" path but a "secret" that you're meant to find in order to get the fastest possible time. Right after that path is the only sharp turn I can recall in the entire game that does not auto drift or give you a way to take the turn quickly. If you don't take that path you essentially have to slow down to take the turn. You can air dash to it or homing attack the enemies, who all jump over that path.
Similar to Wind Waker with it's cut dungeons, it's going to be very interesting to come away from all this with a final idea of things that probably would have been in Forces had there been more time/money/coffee/everything. I mean yeah, I'm sure hypothetically Sonic Team could have made something vastly different if money and time wasn't an issue - But for now I just mean things that look like they were probably meant to be in the current final game at some point. Off the top of my head I can think of: - Chaos and Shadow Boss Fights - Null Space as an actual full stage - Infinite Fight 3 being a unique boss and not just the Metal Sonic fight again There's probably some other obvious things I'm missing.
To be fair there's nothing suggesting Chaos and Shadow were ever going to be boss fights. It may have always been planned as a tease.
True, can't prove that one, but I do feel like it's odd for Sonic Team to have purposefully planned Zavok to be a gameplay boss and have the two more popular villains die in cutscenes, especially Chaos. It really feels more like they just didn't have time to do anything with him, so just quickly got rid of him in Classic Sonic's first cutscene. I can't imagine that's how it was penned from Day 1, but then again I am giving them the benefit of the doubt so that almost goes against my above post, whoops!
The Fake Shadow cutscene where he gets taken down is also really, really badly animated, like they didn't have the time to make a second pass and it was hastily put together.
Forces feels like it was planned to be one thing, and then squandered, almost entirely reworked into a smaller project. Years were spent developing the engine, but the game itself is notoriously unambitious, by numbers and had a very short production time. The development team even is very young and inexperienced with the series. It's a different case to something like Rise of Lyric or 06, which were big projects that got neutered to release on time. Forces is the game that SEGA planned to release; a damp squib. I don't think that any other Sonic game has ever made me feel quite so bemused and lacking in confidence, not even Sonic 4.
Man, I've been somewhat quiet about my thoughts on this game until now, but now I just feel like rambling... This game hurts man. I like the boost formula. It's not perfect but I hold Colors and Generations as second only to Adventure 1 as my favorite 3D Sonic games (Note: I say that knowing Adventures many, many flaws). To see it reduced to what it is in Forces is just painful. After Lost World, people pleaded Sonic Team to just go back and refine the boost formula, as it was showing some genuine promise in Generations, and when they do, they make the baffling decision of using Lost World's engine and all of its control problems with it. The level design is attrocious no matter who you're playing as. Like, I know people roll their eyes at statements like this, but I've seen fan projects with better level design than what a team of 3 people managed to come up with over more than a years worth of development. The lack of time I actually got to spend playing the game compared to watching it is sickening. And the story... God dammit, I wanted to love this story so badly. Im working on a Creative Writing for Entertainment Bachelor's right now, so I see all of these glimmers of a genuinely good story amidst the mess of a plot we have now, and every chance they have to take advantage of it they quite literally glance over it like it's nothing. The premise is right up my alley. I can literally fix almost everything wrong with the script and structure of this game in an afternoon of brainstorming. I just can't stand it. People keep saying "Well hey, the game shows potential. And all things considered it isn't even close to the worst Sonic game." In what world is that an acceptable excuse?! We are a part of a franchise that has been quite literally the butt of every gamer's joke for more than a decade. And we STILL pull excuses like "At least it isn't the worst game"? How do you people think Sonic Team keeps getting away with all this mediocrity? Just... Ugh. I really can't contribute anything that hasn't already been said. This game actively angers me in a way no Sonic game ever has.
Same here dude. I've been buying Sonic games day one since the Master System but there's just too many negative impressions from those that have completed it. Feels bad man. It's such a shame because the game initially seemed so promising. Sega/Sonic Team are really going to have try harder next time.
I bought a used copy of the bonus edition at half price, and it included the bonus cards unopened and the DLC unused. Ordinarily, I'd say this was a pretty decent deal given how recent the game is, but everything about it is so underwhelming that I'm just left with an empty feeling. And I had a pretty good idea what I was getting into in the first place. I think this is the first time I've played something that feels the same as watching a YouTube playthrough. Even for a 3D Sonic game, Forces is extremely automated. I'm actually shocked at how scripted everything is. Every time something remotely interesting happens, it's as if the game yanks the controller away from you and decides to play itself. Maybe next time we'll get a game where Sonic jumps on his own (he already turns automatically, so why stop there?) To be clear, the automation is far from my only problem with the game, but it's what stood out to me the most. The level design is mind-numbing and the character movement is atrocious, but I feel like that horse was already dead before the game came out, so I'll just leave it at that. Suffice to say that each and every one of our concerns before release was not unfounded (if there was ever any doubt). To say nothing of the haphazardous plot. I honestly found the avatar creation tool more engaging than anything else, which is... really saying something, given how shallow it is. Actually, that's probably the best adjective to describe Forces. Oh well. I've never dabbled in fan characters or anything like that, but at least I managed to recreate and play as Fang the Sniper, so that's something. As for actual positives? I enjoyed the avatar's songs when I wasn't paying attention to the awful lyrics (even if that comes with the territory). The music in Sonic's stages isn't exactly bad, but that synth they use in every single track gets old fast. I wish we could have had more stuff like the laid-back music that plays in the indoors section of Chemical Plant, but even that uses the same goddamn synth like they were on a contract or something. Not that the rest of the game is awful, per se. To be honest, I'm more upset at the wasted potential than anything else, but I suppose that's the general sentiment among those who've played it. I'm just glad I didn't give Sega any money for it.
I'm really bummed out by this game. A lot. Like, the continuation of Mania and the premise of it seemed so cool. It's not horrible, just very mediocre and a lot of wasted potential. The soundtrack is fucking stellar like most Sonic games, but it's gonna be a while until I can listen to it and dissociate from the game itself.
