Sonic Forces

 Switch
Metascore
57

Mixed or average reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 17
  3. Negative: 1 out of 17
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  1. FNintendo
    Nov 17, 2017
    40
    Sonic Forces may have created some hype but unfortunately, it mostly falls flat on its face as it quickly becomes obvious that this game is an exercise in disappointment. While the action runs smoothly whether on a television screen or on handheld mode, the game's short and unimaginative levels, the absence of gameplay mechanics that had become a staple of 3D Sonic games, the unreliable controls and the mediocre soundtrack all add up to a very flawed game from which a lot more was expected.
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  1. Eurogamer
    Nov 9, 2017
    Though not without its moments, Forces is a depressing return to form for Sonic the Hedgehog after the joys of Mania.
  2. Kotaku
    Nov 8, 2017
    Sonic Forces is messy. The story is a jumble of references and nearly incoherent plot points while the level design is scattered and frequently undermined by conceptual flaws. Messy games just aren’t always the worst. This game plays out with so much infectious energy and excitement that it’s hard not to smile while playing it. It’s not very polished but Sonic Forces manages to find excitement in spite of rough edges. It’s a playable Saturday morning cartoon: silly, janky but for a brief period of time, a fun distraction.
  3. The Jimquisition
    Nov 8, 2017
    It's no Sonic Mania, but that aside, I had fun with it. I played it and beat it on launch day... As far as 3D Sonic games go, this is all right... Not quite as good as Sonic Generations.
  5. VG247
    Nov 24, 2017
    Classic Sonic feels like his infamous sneakers are lined with lead. Generations was decent, but in such close proximity to Sonic Mania these problems feel all the more crippling.

Awards & Rankings

7
#7 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2017
12
#12 Most Shared Switch Game of 2017

User Reviews

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User Score
6.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 694 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 336 out of 694
  2. Mixed: 195 out of 694
  3. Negative: 163 out of 694
  1. TheMarioFan
    Nov 7, 2017
    10
    this game is pretty fun just like colours and generations
    although im more of a mario fan but i can sense the biased ratings on the game    this game is pretty fun just like colours and generations
    although im more of a mario fan but i can sense the biased ratings on the game

    the story is great , graphics are great , gameplay is great and well the music is the best part    … Full Review »
  2. Invader9
    Aug 20, 2018
    1
    Horrible level design, lousy "story", boring gameplay, forgettable music, lackluster animations (isn't it sad that Unleashed, a game fromHorrible level design, lousy "story", boring gameplay, forgettable music, lackluster animations (isn't it sad that Unleashed, a game from 2008, is still the best looking Sonic game?) and a dark tone that just comes off as forced more than anything else. This might not be the absolute WORST Sonic game, but of all the ones I've played, it's defiantly the one I've hated the most.… Full Review »
  3. JohnGrey
    Nov 7, 2017
    3
    Sonic Forces Review
    Switch
    Version 1.01 I was nine years old, and already well loyal to Nintendo, when Sonic the Hedgehog burst onto the    Sonic Forces Review
    Switch
    Version 1.01

    I was nine years old, and already well loyal to Nintendo, when Sonic the Hedgehog burst onto the games scene in 1991 and forced me to join most of my mates in vassalship to SEGA. Britain had been in the first Major ministry for less than a year and the Soviet Union, then politically little more than inertia and wishful thinking, was a mere six months from delivering the death blow to a half-century long Cold War. Though I did not have the language or context to describe it at the time, I recall a attitude of youthful exuberance, playful irreverence and cautious optimism that a decidedly new day had dawned, and SEGA's new mascot felt utterly at home. I've been there with Sonic through most of the intervening decades: making the leap to CD, to the Dreamcast Adventures, even to the trying and inconsistent Modern days.

    Twenty-six years removed from that first adventure, I, now a middle-aged and facing a world far more dystopian that the halcyon days of the nineties, decided to play and review the blue blur's newest adventure, and find that I much prefer the metaphysical horror of helplessness caused by real life to the metaphysical horror of uselessness found in Sonic Forces. It is, in the most concise and charitable phrasing I can muster, a testament to aspirations of mediocrity. Please note that I very specifically and intentionally write 'aspiration to' it, not the state itself, because I cannot reasonably even call the game mediocre. To my own mind, mediocrity would be stagnation, an inability to move beyond or improve upon whichever of the formulae, that have comprised the frantic experimentation of period inaugurated by the reboot of doom, is momentarily on display. This, alas, Sonic Team could not even muster. The level design, which to my opinion peaked in creativity with Colors and in consistency with Generations, has retreated in virtually every metric. Length, variety and dynamism are an unimagined dream in the doldrums of this disaster's roughly fifty stages. General control has managed to become even more wildly inconsistent, punctuating what is mostly sluggish and cumbersome translation of movement with the occasional burst of comical slipperiness, and the boost mechanic, having already overstayed its welcome on the whole, when coupled with the absurd brevity of the stages, is a recipe for game that appeals to speedrunners and few others. The art design is mostly clean though uninspired, but critically the technical presentation is notably poor on the Switch, and most other systems not natively outputting at 1080p, strongly suggesting that next to no optimisation was done despite it ostensibly being a mainline multi-platform release. By far the worst offender of this title, or the greatest victim depending on your degree of empathy, is Sonic's lore. Now having suffered three consecutive titles featuring time travel, cross-dimensionality or both, all pretence to a cohesive narrative has been obliterated. Worse still, the infantile writing of Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, already culpable for Sonic Lost World and all Sonic Boom games, delivers a story bereft of nuance or any emotion beyond shoneny angst, taking what ought to have been desperate and harrowing fight against tyrannical annihilation and giving it the emotional weight of schoolyard tussle over favourite Pokemon.

    It's a strange thing to grow up with, and in some ways away from, a cherished part of childhood, and frequently it's only in later adulthood when we find the strength, or perhaps resignation, to be more cynical about our formative years and those things which hallmarked them. With Sonic Forces, I sincerely believe that the time has come for the games community to have a frank and honest communication about the place of Sonic and whether his relevance, at least in the 3D platforming space, has passed from the commercial to the historical. For more than a decade I, and many others in the fandom, have soothed the wound of SEGA's and Sonic Team's incompetence with the balm of 'the next game', but there is a limit to the latitude that can be given to a pastime that demands so much and consistently offers so little. In life, there is always that moment, as certainly harrowing as it often is bittersweet, where we confront that not only are our days truly numbered but that those behind us are, with a moral certainly, better than those before us. I cannot help but question whether that time has come for Big Blue.    … Full Review »
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