Heh. I made a funny.

The last main episode of my YouTube venture, Tracker Talks, was me talking about how I thought the latest Sonic games were going to be revealed. Fast forward, and now Sonic Mania is tantalisingly close (or out, if you’re reading this after August 15th), leaving us to turn our attention to that… other Sonic game. The 3D one.

Sonic Forces’ pre-release has been… interesting to say the least. When the game was revealed, the magic of having a new Modern Sonic game quickly wore off when people laid eyes upon Classic Sonic. And then we started getting more details, some gameplay, the surprise of a custom character creator thing… and if you follow me over on the Twitterverse, you’ll know I’ve not been particularly kind to Sonic Forces.

To be blunt, Forces hasn’t exactly been met with widespread approval; Sonic fans have spent countless hours pointing out flaws in the various aspects of what we’ve seen from Forces, leading to stupid video titles like “The Sonic Fanbase Can’t Be Pleased”, and previews from mainstream outlets have been overwhelmingly negative towards the game, leading to stupid shit like journalists getting death threats from upset Sonic fans. It’s basically led to a heaping helping of division amongst the Sonic fanbase.

I’m not here to address that division to be honest. Whenever I drag Forces on Twitter, I’m often met with annoyance, a smug comment about Sonic Mania that falls flat on its arse, or straight-up all-caps rage. But it’s OK! I’m just gonna write a shitload about Sonic Forces now, so I can organise my thoughts on what we’ve seen in one neat, tidy place – because who doesn’t love backseat gamedev? For convenience, I’ll be going through points and questions most often raised against mine when I discuss Sonic Forces on Twitter and the like.

Before I dive into this, a disclaimer that I’m sure 60% of Sonic fans will ignore; if you like the look of Forces, that’s cool! A fair chunk of my friends are looking forward to it too. Saying Sonic Forces looks bad isn’t an insult. So just put down the axe, yeah?

And another disclaimer: I like to think I’ve at least a somewhat decent understanding of how things work on at least aspects of the technical front, but if I’m wildly, objectively wrong on anything, give me a slap.

Right, let’s roll. Unlike Modern Sonic in Sonic Forces.

I want to get the matter of gameplay out of the way first, because it’s by far the most prevalent issue with Sonic Forces and the thing I care most about when I buy a video game. I shouldn’t have to clarify this, but the amount of Sonic fans who want Sonic’s inherently arcade-like nature to take a backseat to a Last Of Us tier narrative disturbs me somewhat. Anywho.

Forces is obviously split into 3 gameplay styles; Modern Sonic, who has his boost from the likes of Colours and Generations, Classic Sonic who… looks bad, and Avatar who… also looks bad. We’ll go with Modern Sonic first, because he’s arguably the most complicated issue with the gameplay.

So, yeah the Boost is back. It-

“BUT TRACKER, THE BOOST WAS IN GENERATIONS AND IT WAS GOOD, AND NOW IT’S IN FORCES SO IT’S GOOD, SHUT UP”

The boost was in Generations! And I liked Generations! But you know what Generations also had?

Good level design.

You know what Forces doesn’t have so far? At all? In any of the gameplay styles?

Take a wild guess.

The Boost gameplay in concept isn’t exactly perfect, but even Green Hill Zone Act 2 in Generations was a cut above City Heights in Forces. All the latter appears to amount to is an incredibly short, automated run through a city with homing attack chains, a hefty chunk of 2D (that doesn’t exactly look too great either) and boost panels up the ass.

“BUT TRACKER, IT’S JUST ONE LEVEL! IT’S THE FIRST LEVEL! GO EASY O-“

Green Hill Act 2 is the first (Modern Sonic) level in Generations; but that doesn’t mean it’s pants. Being the first level doesn’t really excuse it; making an easy level doesn’t mean it has to be designed badly, that’s why Emerald Coast in SA1 and City Escape in SA2 exist, innit.

And it’s not just one level either. As I’ve mentioned, the bad level design appears to permeate across each of the gameplay styles we’ve seen. Essentially, we’ve seen 4 levels; Modern City Heights, OC City Heights, Classic Green Hill Zone and OC Green Hill Zone. None of the level design so far looks particularly great; it’s either automated to all hell, incredibly blocky, or painfully linear. So no, it’s not just one level. Bad level design is quickly becoming a running theme with Forces.

Like I said, I don’t actually mind the Boost. But I don’t think it’s great, due to how it inherently limits what can be done with the game without tacking on naff gimmicks like Classic Sonic, the OC, or in past games stuff like the Werehog.

“BUT TRACKER! SONIC COLOURS EXISTS, WHY DOES IT LIMIT THE GAMES!?”

You’re right! Sonic Colours does exist; and was entirely Boost-centric. But Colours also had a ton of blocky 2D segments and filler acts, comprised of mediocre replays of chunks from other acts, or straight up bad level-specific gimmicks. Even with all this filler in mind, Sonic Colours is about 3 hours long. I’m not terribly fussy about game length (Sonic 3 & Knuckles isn’t terribly long, after all) but that’s kinda naff given I’ll be dropping £35 if I get this game Day One (I won’t be).

When I say the boost gameplay limits what can be done with the games, I mean from the development side of things. In order to make, say, the fully 3D, boost-only game that many want, Sonic Team would need time and resources well-beyond what is reasonable. Due to the speed at which Sonic travels, a boost level essentially requires twice as much terrain development as say, a typical Mario 3D World level; this is why 2D in the Boost gameplay winds up so prevalent in games such as Colours. The 2D sections don’t need surrounding detail and such, as you’re fixed to a single plane with a single camera angle. Less terrain has to be filled in and polished, along with relevant collision. It’s tough to explain, but that’s why the bulk of say, Sonic Generations level mods are either 2D, such as Mystic Cave, or look… kind of blocky and somewhat amateurish.

Modern already has 2D segments back in Forces, looking about as ‘organic’ as they did in Colours, but Classic’s also here and fully 2D again, and even the Avatar has a healthy amount of 2D! In fact, purely on what we’ve seen, Forces is more of a 2D game than a 3D one right now!

This wouldn’t be an issue if the 2D was, y’know, fun, but as I just said; the 2D sections look like they’re taking the Colours approach to design, and generally lacking much excitement. The latter more goes for Classic Sonic, who’s GHZ Act is approaching parody with how naff it looks.

As for The Boost in practice, the move itself is powered by Wisps again, a la Colours; but it looks like every enemy gives you them this time, so I don’t think you’ll be starved for ’em like that game. I know some people prefer the more methodical spin on the boost that Colours supposedly provides, but honestly if you’re going to give your gameplay style a focus on just going fast with a “going fast” button, having big stretches where you don’t have any opportunities to get juice just winds up feeling kinda naff. I don’t think Forces is doing that, so props for that at least.

You know what doesn’t get props? Axing the drift. Yeah, bizarrely the drift is now apparently sliced from Modern Sonic’s moveset. I enjoyed drifting! Even where you weren’t supposed to, it was fun and let you do some silly shit. I don’t actually reckon Forces will have axed it completely, to be honest; more likely is that it’s context-sensitive like in Sonic Colours. Which is arguably worse, given how poor the drift was in that game. It feels like it was only like that because of the Wii setup, so reverting back to the context-sensitive style when every platform this game’s releasing on has more than enough buttons to just do Sonic’s moveset properly like Generations annoys me a decent bit.

Anyway, I’m bored of talking about Modern Sonic now. I’ve probably sounded absolutely brutal here, but to be entirely honest I don’t expect Modern Sonic’s sections in Forces to be bad; just either incredibly mediocre, or outright boring a la Colours. And I’m not too surprised by that to be honest. Forces is being directed by Morio Kishimoto, who’s previous Director and Lead Game Designer credits include gems such as Sonic Lost World, Sonic Colours, Sonic and… the Black Knight. And… Secret Rings.

Oh dear.

Alright, it’s time for Classic Sonic then. Now, I love Classic Sonic. I think the design is timeless, the original games are some of the best I’ve ever played, and Sonic Mania? Whew, lads, that’s gonna be something special.

I was fine with Classic Sonic returning in Generations, because it’s the 20th Anniversary game and thematically it was appropriate. I was more lenient on the relatively mediocre level design he was handed in that game at the time, because everyone’s caught up in the 20th Anniversary fever and it’s just a nice little game, innit. I was also fine with him returning for Mania because… just look at it! It’s a perfect interpretation of Classic, and more importantly, its own thing.

Bringing Classic Sonic back for Forces is ham-fisted nostalgia-pandering to flog some units. This is painfully evident in the level design above all else. But before tha-

“BUT TRACKER, IF FORCES IS JUST NOSTALGIA PANDERING, SO IS MANIA! YOU HYPOCRITE!”

I get this response. A lot. And it’s a fair point, at a glance. But the thing is, I really don’t see Mania as nostalgia pandering.

Mania certainly sets out to invoke nostalgia, but it’s doing so in a way that doesn’t feel particularly intrusive. It takes what worked about the original games, and enhances them. Sonic’s got a new move to bring him in line with Tails and Knuckles, the Drop Dash. The returning levels are reimagined, some so drastically that the only thing they really seem to share with the original stage is the name and aesthetic. The Special Stages are a logical evolution of the stuff seen in CD and Chaotix. Mania understands what made the original games good, and just seeks to enhance it, with a fresh, Saturn-inspired coat of paint. Bringing back Classic Sonic by itself is not nostalgia-pandering; he’s the better Sonic design in my opinion (despite the fact I actually grew up with the Modern titles), and I’m glad he’s back and being done justice with Mania. Modern was allowed to trudge through a plethora of mediocre to utterly bad games for nearly 10 years, so what’s the harm in bringing back the Sonic representative of his golden age for a spin that actually cares understands what made him loved in the first place for once?

Forces from the looks of things doesn’t understand what made Classic Sonic good. At all. It adds the drop dash, yes, but without the context of why he’s got that it’s just another power-up, though harmless. The level design doesn’t look like improved or even particularly competent; it’s actually considerably worse. The physics don’t exactly look too hot either – I’ve heard mixed things on them, so I’ll reserve comment, but they’re definitely not accurate to the originals. Not that it’d matter if they were, anyway though, as for as much as people banged on about physics when Generations and 4 came out, it’s vital to note that physics are nothing without good level design to utilise them in. Mania’s level design for instance, looks great! If it had the level design approach of say, Knuckles Chaotix, then all the physics in the world wouldn’t matter; Mania wouldn’t be good. But we’ve seen nothing to suggest Mania hitting that kind of low. On the contrary, Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 looks to be some of the best Classic Sonic level design I’ve ever seen.

Forces doesn’t even reach the mediocrity of Generations with Classic’s Green Hill Zone. It looks lazy, with only a surface-level understanding of how the make a fast-paced 2D level. Aspects such as the boost panels before tiny loops and in S-Tunnels are practically insulting to the player’s intelligence.

“BUT TRACKER, THE CLASSIC GAMES HAD BOOSTERS! LOOK AT CHEMICAL PLANT!”

In say, Sonic 2’s Chemical Plant, the boosters are used as a means of short spectacle. A set-piece, essentially. It lasts about 2 seconds and isn’t emblematic of the general experience.

A single loop, or a tiny ledge, is not a set-piece. On it’s own, not an issue; but Forces’ overuse of these elements, not just here but in places such as Modern’s City Heights, paint a worrying image of how the objects are going to be utilised across the game. A pattern is emerging, and it looks like automation, innit.

Really, I don’t want to dwell on Classic too much. It’s stupid that he’s in Forces when Mania already exists to satisfy the Classic fanbase, and the fact the level design looks worse than Generations after supposedly 4 years in development astounds me. I honestly never expected Classic game-tier level design from Forces to begin with, nor physics, but if it was at least a bit better than Generations, I would’ve let it slide. Welp.

And so that brings us to the elephant in the room; the bloody custom character.

My thoughts on Forces’ brand-spanking new custom character have been all-over the place since its reveal. I think my overall thoughts on it are less annoyance towards it, and more… ambivalence. At least in concept.

It’s true that Sonic Team has an absolutely ridiculous number of characters that could’ve taken the OC’s role. Tails is good with gadgets, why not let us use him? Shadow exists too! Maybe even Knuckles!

But truth be told, I can’t find myself caring too much because I’m just not very attached to much of the extended Sonic cast. Shadow’s shite, Rouge is shite, Omega is… good, the Babylon Rogues are shite – you get the gist? Honestly, an OC maker gels with me better than just phoning in Shadow again, but it’s only because of how little I care for much of the potential other characters. It’s a harmless extra that’ll probably appeal to kids, so I’m like, whatever. Tracker the Dog can live again.

I do kind of wish they’d just tried the OC in a smaller, spin-off title though. As it stands, the OC gameplay doesn’t exactly look… great. I think a spin-off prelude with the concept would’ve helped Sonic Team nail down the concept and gameplay, before letting it fly on the big stage in a mainline title. I think it’s overall a harmless concept though, and I guess we might get Puyo Fanservice out of it, so eh.

But that brings us to the custom character’s actual gameplay, where I’m left either bored at what I’ve seen, astounded by some of the lazy design choices, or outside stunned by how it appears to play at points.

I think utilising the Wisps as different weapons is actually a neat idea, and I prefer it to them breaking up Sonic’s own gameplay with often awkward diversions. But out of the two weapons I’ve seen, the flamethrower and the electric whip… thing, I’m not particularly impressed with either. The flamethrower is bland, because it basically just amounts of a wall of death in front of you at nearly all times. This is especially prevalent in the level design, where there’s often just rows of enemies in 2D section, waiting to be mowed down with the big fire death button. The whip on the other hand, looks outright terrible. I’ll give it that the light dash style thing you can do with it looks cool and appears to give the OC some semblance of speed and flow, but the whip attack itself looks like Omega’s sliding punch shite in Sonic Heroes. And if you know me, you’ll know it’s never a good thing when I’m comparing a game to Sonic Heroes. In a 3D space, the issue is especially pronounced; there’s no flow to it or anything, it just awkwardly judds you forward and kills any momentum you could’ve had.

In a sense, OC’s City Heights just looks like what would happen if you threw Knuckles from Heroes into a Boost Sonic level. It’s a naff concept, and while Green Hill fares slightly better, that’s probably just down to it being entirely 2D and having less to fuck up a la City Heights.

“BUT TRACKER! IF THE WHIP SUCKS SO MUCH, USE THE FLAMETHROWER!”

See, but this is a game element about customisation! If I don’t use an ability, it should be because it doesn’t gel with my playstyle, not because it’s inherently flawed in terms of killing flow and pace in a level! All of the abilities should have some merit, to keep things balanced. As it stands the only advantage the lightning whip has is the light dash, and I can’t call that a good trade-off for competent basic combat.

On the whole, I’m still massively unsure about the OC. It boils down to a gimmick a la the Sonic titles of the mid-2000s, and the level design and fundamental gameplay I’ve seen doesn’t inspire confidence. I feel this might actually be something I will only 100% understand when I have played the game though.

That about does it for my impressions of how Forces is shaping up gameplay-wise. But there’s an elephant in the room, and that is of course…

“BUT TRACKER, YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED THE GAME! YOUR OPINION IS MEANINGLESS!”

I get this a hell of a lot.

It’s true! I haven’t played Forces. But you know who else hasn’t?

You, probably.

I’d wager a good 75% of the folks who decry anyone judging Forces off the marketing so far haven’t played the game themselves either. In essence, if saying “Sonic Forces looks kinda bad” is wrong, so is saying “Sonic Forces looks kinda good.” You can’t just have one or the other be fine. It’s either both, or none.

Spoiler: the correct answer is both are fine, innit.

And if you have played it, and you enjoyed it? More power to ya. But the media impressions I’m seeing overwhelmingly confirm many of the fears I’ve raised about Forces. And-

“BUT TRACKER, THE MEDIA HATES SONIC!”

No, no they don’t. The media isn’t this weird hivemind of pure Sonic hatred that much of the Sonic fanbase has painted it out to be; Mania’s good press is proof as much. From here, it looks like – and this may surprise some of you – that the secret to the press not shitting on Sonic, is for Sonic to be in good games. Dang. Real revelation there.

“BUT TRACKER, THEY SAID SONIC HASN’T BEEN GOOD IN YEARS!”

And he hasn’t! Sonic Generations was, terrifyingly, 6 years ago! Since then we’ve had Lost World, which was bad, and the Boom games, which ranged from mediocre to absolutely terrible. Frankly, I can’t exactly blame them for leading with that anymore. It’s not exactly an original opener, and I wish they’d come up with some new material, but I sure as hell can’t get insulted over it. Same goes for the “SONIC WAS NEVER GOOD” thing. This was said like, once, in an IGN podcast (rather than it being some kind of company mantra, as many Sonic fans would have you believe). Is it daft? Pretty much. But I don’t feel the need to get insulted by such a statement, nor pitch a tent outside IGN screaming about it, because I’m 19 years old and have better things to do with my life. Like playing the good Sonic games.

Games media is far, far from perfect, but this suggestion that the press opinions are worthless purely because the byline’s beneath the logo of an established site is nonsense.

So yeah. That’s that then. I guess I’d better cover the rest of the game now.

Sonic Forces’ story is currently somewhat shrouded in mystery. We know Eggman’s there, we know he’s taken over like, 99% of the world. But then we’ve got all the villains being arbitrarily brought back (who asked for Zavok? Really, who?). Metal Sonic? Yeah fine, he’s Eggman’s right hand essentially. Shadow? That guy who had an entire game about deciding to be an anti-hero, rather than straight-up bad? The hell happened to Maria? Chaos is here too, I guess; it’s just very messy and I can’t think of a reason for pretty much any of these villains to return that isn’t contrived or poorly thought-out. I won’t be surprised if Chaos is there purely to re-use his Perfect Chaos model from Generations as a bossfight.

That brings us to our new edgy boy, Infinite. Now I can always appreciate having a character voiced by Liam O’Brien, but Infinite hasn’t exactly done much to grab my attention so far. He comes across a very generic edgy villain, speaking in fancy-ass lingo and with design comprised entirely of shades of black and red. His design in general looks like it was ripped right out of DeviantART; I can barely work out where it starts and where it ends, it’s such a clusterfuck.

“BUT TRACKER, WHAT IF FORCES IS JUST SELF-AWARE!?”

You really think Sonic Team are being self-aware with this? Really? C’mon now.

I’m not entirely wary of Forces diving into cringeworthy edge territory in general as of yet; a burning city doesn’t really mean that much despite the 06 flashbacks. Eggman’s torches Angel Island in Sonic 3, but that’s not edgy. I think context is going to decide whether certain aspects are overly “edgy” or not, and that’s context we currently don’t have. Sonic’s friends returning is something, but they’re still essentially just cheerleaders; cheerleaders that now take up a hefty chunk of the screen to blabber at you about Death Egg Robots and the like, granted. I’ll leave it at me not being particularly optimistic for Forces’ narrative, but not 100% against it as it stands, either.

I haven’t yet mentioned the asset reuse going on in Forces, but it’s getting distracting. I don’t think it’s a critical issue truth be told, but bringing back Green Hill Zone is kinda silly, and the random collection of villains and aspects such as the Egg Dragoon isn’t helping.

“BUT TRACKER! MANIA REUSES WHOLE ZONES!”

I don’t think I know anyone who wouldn’t prefer Mania to have been entirely original zones; but Mania’s reuse of zones just isn’t an issue at this point. It feeds back to my earlier point during the Classic Sonic segment of this thing. Mania understands and enhances what made the Classics great, into something that, while using an old trope and name, feels exciting and fresh. Green Hill Act 2 for instance, is basically the ultimate tropical zone, even taking notes from the Master System games. It’s done in an incredibly cohesive way that feels in-line with a Classic Sonic game, but also new and interesting.

Forces? Just dumped the contents of a sandpit in Green Hill and fucked up the level design. Grand. There’s no understanding or cohesion there, and the “sand” does nothing to enhance the level. You could replace that sand with the regular Green Hill water and it’d make no difference. The OC incorporates a factory-themed portion directly into the level, but all that seems to do is make the level design more blocky and bland; it’s not an enhancement, it’s basically detracting from the stage.

In short, Mania understands how to give these levels new life in an interesting way. Forces doesn’t.

…So anyway, how about that music?

Forces soundtrack isn’t shaping up too hot; I’d put more songs on the bad pile than good right now, and I can’t remember the last time I did that in a mainline Sonic game. Lost World’s soundtrack was incredibly forgettable, but it very rarely went to something I’d consider bad. Forces has brought back vocal themes for like, half the game. Initially, I was overjoyed about this. Sonic R’s one of my favourite Sonic OSTs, and vocal Sonic music, while cheesy, is generally a good time.

But stuff like Fist Bump, or OC Green Hill’s music? That’s the bad kind of cheesy vocal music. It’s not fun to listen to, it’s cringeworthy. Fist Bump is laughably poor.

Infinite’s theme fares slightly better, but it feels outdated and ill-fitting for a Sonic game. As a song, it’s inoffensive, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to it unlike say, What I’m Made Of.

So far, the songs I’ve found myself enjoying most are both of the City Heights themes. I think Modern’s instrumentation could use work, but OC’s just reminds me of Phantasy Star music, and I’m down with that. For me, it hits that sweet spot of cheesy, but not cringeworthy.

And look, I don’t need to mention Classic’s Green Hill. It’s an abomination. We know. Moving on.

Moving on… to the end that is. I don’t actually have anything much else to say.

Sonic Forces doesn’t look like a good game to me as it stands. It doesn’t seem to have learned things from past games, but is instead neutering what I enjoyed about them, and piling gimmicky stuff on top. The presentation leaves a lot to be desired; graphically I think it looks fine, and I definitely appreciate the push for 60fps, but the general aesthetic of the game is a very mixed bag. Sticking with Lost World’s weirdly cubist artstyle in a more realistic cityscape just looks odd, and I swear every scene released so far looks like it’s got an overdone sunset overlay on it, even in areas that seem to be different to the opening Hellscape City™. In terms of other aspects such as music? Nah. Not as it stands. The narrative doesn’t interest me particularly, either.

I don’t think Sonic Forces is going to fall to the hellish depths of say, 06, or Heroes. I just expect it to be incredibly unimpressive and bland; so like Colours, basically. Indeed, right now Forces just looks like Colours 2.0, but arguably with worse level design and some gimmicky pandering like Classic Sonic thrown in for good measure.

Forces is setting out to please every aspect of the fanbase; but for all the things it sets out to do, it appears to master none. Could I be completely, totally wrong here? Could the rest of the game completely reverse these expectations?

Given the pattern emerging from the content we’ve seen now, as well as the overwhelmingly negative consensus from previews, I’m not optimistic.

If you made it this far, hey, good job! If you like how Forces looks and you made it this far, you’re a trooper!

Feel free to fire responses over Twitter, because chances are I messed up explaining my reasoning at some point during this thing. Bonus points if your response doesn’t include the word “Mania”.

I referred to several previews in this piece. Click here to visit an archive of said previews.