Sonic games are a roller coaster for reviewers, Polygon review SONIC FORCES : 5/10

[Thief]

Some things that stick out in this video review are worse control/physics then Generations and that only the unlockables seem to be avatar clothing. Also, most stages are for Sonic and Avatar, while classic Sonic has the least amount of stages by far (reinforcing that classic Sonic might have just been tacked on so it can sell to classic Sonic fans as well).

[TrekkiesUnite118]

I've pretty much learned to stop reading reviews for Sonic Games and form my own opinion instead. Other than 2006 and Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric, I've found most "bad" Sonic games to be much better than people say and had a blast playing them.

[Eep386]

It probably will be all over the place. I saw a video that said Famitsu gave it 35/40(3 9's and an 8).

Those ass-kissers don't exactly have much credibility in my book. They gave Pokemon Black/White a perfect score.

[Mega Drive Bowlsey]

Those ass-kissers don't exactly have much credibility in my book. They gave Pokemon Black/White a perfect score.

Games reviewers have never had much if any credibility when it comes to Nintendo games. They all just wank themselves stupid over every single one. Over here in the UK we had a video games magazine called Gamesmaster and I remember back in 1992 they gave Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive something like 65% and took turns slating it (I kid you not) and then fast forward to 1997 they gave Super Mario 64 100% and proclaimed it the game of the year! Get the fuck outta town with that one! I can think of at least five games that came out in 1997 that were better than SM64.

That said I'm not a fan of Sonic's 3D adventures with the exception of Generations. To me Sonic should always be 2D and Sonic Mania proved it. The first truly excellent Sonic game since Sonic & Knuckles and I cannot wait for Sonic Mania 2!

[BonusKun]

100% of the Sonic games I have played to completion have been good games. And I have played a ton. Some neat surprises in there too, such as the Sonic Boom series on the 3DS, which are absolutely fantastic.

If forces is anything like Colors or Generations, I will love it.

I love you so much man but that music on the 1st stage was total ear rape.

[Team Andromeda]

The game is ace and looks insanely good on the XBox One X .

[Thief]

Already have One X, TA?

[avlon]

Reviews are meant to be read en masse. They are opinion pieces.

No one seemed to have an issue with Polygon when they stomped on the ATgames Genesis flashback.

[Team Andromeda]

Already have One X, TA?

Yep, both game back today. Its not as good as Generations but its still fun and a great game,

[Allard]

So, before I say what I think of the game, I'll list the Sonic games I played through just so you know where I stand from.
Sonic 1, 2, 3&K, SA, SA2, ShTH, Unleashed, Generations, 4 Ep1, 4 Ep2, Lost World, Mania. I also played, but not beaten Heroes and Colors. And some 8-bit games, but nobody cares about those.
And I enjoyed pretty much all of them... except for Lost World, that one I hate to my very core, but the rest of them were perfectly fine.
Thus, how do I find Forces after an hour and a half in?
It's good, not great.
The biggest flaw is how Modern Sonic's design is much more linear this time around, with fewer paths that are harder to see. The game overall is also a bit easier than I'd like it. Classic is fine, even if he is absolutely superflous to this game. The Avatar is a ton of fun - creating, outfitting and exploring different abilities is pretty great. I actually consider the Avatar in itself to be a brilliant move, since a pretty big part of the fanbase obviously wanted something like that for years - and now they can do it, only it wouldn't look like a crappy paintjob of an existing character - and also, it's just a fun thing for a kids' game. I loved making custom characters in games such as Twisted Metal 4 or MTV Celebrity Deathmatch when I was a kid (don't look at me like that, better games, more often than not, didn't have a character creation mechanic).
The audio and visuals are once again great and rich. I do enjoy a better fleshed-out story than the last few games. Also, they finally did away with the atavism of a life system.
Also, you can play as Shadow, which is a positive for me, I always had a soft spot for Edgie the Hedgie.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

I love you so much man but that music on the 1st stage was total ear rape.

Honestly, Music is one of the areas where even bad Sonic games usually excel. Case in point:



Though I've yet to play forces so I don't know how it's music stacks up, or any of the Sonic Booms for that matter.

[Jeckidy]

I finally got my hands on a copy of Sonic 06 and yes, it is terribly designed, buggy, etc. like they say, but I am actually having fun working my way around the bugs and getting through the game, as I am more forgiving of Sonic titles, and some games that get panned by alot of people, so this is nothing new. I also got my hands on Unleashed, but haven't popped it in yet. Generations, now that one is certainly good stuff. Nothing wrong there. I liked it much more than Colors, which disappointed me.

Sonic Forces might be decent enough. I do expect Mania to outshine it (haven't gotten to play that one yet, either) but yeah, sure.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

I actually just ordered Sonic 06 also. Only spent $10 total so I can't lose. Something I'd really like to see in these new sonic games is the option to turn off the annoying voice acting and just have subtitles.

[Phexar]

I haven't played it but from looking at people's responses to it overall, it seems there might be a bit of hyperbole surrounding it because people really wanted a great 3D Sonic game again after they didn't enjoy Lost World so much and then got hit with the disaster that was Sonic Boom after, and ended up with a game that was okay/average/mediocre at the end resulting in quite a backlash. Some people have been having fun with it while recognising that it's flawed. It looks like it might be a bit worse than Unleashed but definitely nowhere near Sonic 06 and Sonic Boom.

The main complaint I'm seeing over and over is that the stages are too short and easy (around 2 minutes to get through each one) and the bosses aren't much different. It was revealed that there were only 3 people working on the levels that hadn't worked on the past 3D Sonic games aside from the lead one whose only experience was working on Lost World which probably explains it.

https://twitter.com/NTom64_Lyfe/stat...01794684588032

So I was curious about the history of level designers of these games since so many people say Forces level design is lacking, so I went through the credits of every Sonic game since Unleashed and found some interesting results.

Compared to the large level design teams the other games had, Forces literally has only three. Now that's not too weird, Adventure 2, Heroes, and Shadow all had small level teams too. But here's the peculiar part. Jyunpei Ootsu, who was moved up to Lead Level Designer for this game, has never worked on levels for any of these games except Lost World. And the other two level designers have not worked on levels for ANY Sonic game prior to this one.

Basically the level designers for Sonic Forces have had little to no experience designing levels for Sonic prior to this game. They're newbies.

Some also suspect that the player avatar might have been Boom Sonic originally who was chopped out after what happened with that game considering their moveset and other things. Also one antagonist never gets fought and another one just sort of vanishes unceremoniously. The game just seems to feel oddly incomplete despite having 4 years to work on it. People loved Sonic Mania which just makes this also look worse in comparison.

In general the game might be a 6/10. It's not up to par with greatness, but it's not terrible either. Just average and some will get a lot of fun out of it. That's my guess after looking through people's responses on it anyway. Seems like just it mainly needed better and longer levels.

[Blades]

I finally got my hands on a copy of Sonic 06 and yes, it is terribly designed, buggy, etc. like they say, but I am actually having fun working my way around the bugs and getting through the game, as I am more forgiving of Sonic titles, and some games that get panned by alot of people, so this is nothing new. I also got my hands on Unleashed, but haven't popped it in yet. Generations, now that one is certainly good stuff. Nothing wrong there. I liked it much more than Colors, which disappointed me.

Sonic Forces might be decent enough. I do expect Mania to outshine it (haven't gotten to play that one yet, either) but yeah, sure.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. When I played through Sonic '06 at launch, I didn't play 'around' the bugs or anything like it. If you stay on the beaten path, nothing will happen. Yeah the story is crazy, Sonic's slow except when he's too fast, and the music is awesome.

The bugs only happen if you try to clip between the road and the wall 20 times. The game shows its unfinished state by not being cohesive at all. Are you supposed to play as Knuckles or not? Why are the chaos emeralds existing in multiple places at once? Why is Shadow working for GUN??!

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