I Think 'Sonic Forces' Is Bad. Some Don't. I Listened to Them Explain Why.

As yesterday wound down, I booted up a copy of Sonic Forces, the latest 3D Sonic game. Though I’ve always been more of a Mario person, a good platformer is a good platformer, whoever’s in the starring role. It’s why I wrote about the surprisingly solid Super Lucky’s Tale! 90 minutes, a half dozen completed stages, and one horrific original character later, I couldn’t take any more of Sonic Forces, a game I described to a friend as “absolute garbage.”

“The Department of Justice needs to investigate why Sega is allowed to charge money for Sonic Forces,” I quickly joked on Twitter. “My greatest reporting assignment will be finding someone who enjoys playing Sonic Forces.”

Believing Sonic Forces to be “absolute garbage” is not an interesting take, especially since I didn’t take the time to beat the game. It was far more interesting to watch people genuinely respond to my second tweet, which barbed people who found joy in playing Sonic Forces. The tweet was meant as a joke, of course; anyone who follows my work knows I have a very live-and-let-live mentality, even if I can’t help but flippantly poke the hornet's nest sometimes.

Top to bottom, Sonic Forces didn’t click for me, and even now, I stand by that. I’ve never been convinced by Sega’s meandering attempts to convert Sonic into 3D, believing the Mario-esque Sonic Adventure to be the most successful attempt. Sonic Forces only underscored my original issues. Sure, some have been better than others— Lost World, Generations—but for a franchise about speed, it’s never been able to meaningfully capture that feeling for more than a few moments.

As a platformer, Sonic Forces has fundamental problems: Sonic’s “targeting” mechanic is frustratingly unreliable; the double jump doesn’t push high enough and is tough to parse when it’s been activated, rendering it useless; the loose and imprecise platforming drives me up a wall.

“Hi Patrick I'm a big fan of waypoint and a lifelong sonic fan that is very happy with how forces came out,” wrote one Twitter user in response. “If you wanna talk, I'm down.”

They were not alone, either. Most of the responses to that tweet involved people explaining (sometimes in an apologetic tone) why they’d broken with the general consensus. Rather than brush them aside, I decided to dig deeper.

I wasn’t interested in convincing myself Sonic Forces was good. I’m open to alternative arguments, especially for games outside mainstream critical acceptance, but if there’s one genre I’m confident in evaluating, it’s platformers. I wrote a Waypoint equivalent of a Super Mario Odyssey review recently, and platformers are a genre I consider myself to be legitimately good at.

This is an argument I can get behind, especially as someone who gets legitimately excited to find out a horror movie has a dozen sequels. “Wait, I can watch ten more of these, and they eventually go to space??” Most people would balk, figuring a studio took a good idea and ran it into the ground by exploiting gullible fans, but what if you consented to being exploited? That’s me when it comes to the announcement of a new Friday the 13th film or the latest flaming pile of garbage Puppet Master movie. I know what I’m in for, I know it’s going to be trash, but sometimes it scratches a certain itch. The mere presence of Jason Voorhees' mask is enough for me sometimes.

I can see why a Sonic fan can find enough, even if it's trashy.

Article continues below

On a recent episode of Waypoint Radio, we trashed the new single from Taylor Swift. (It’s still bad.) A fan wrote in, upset that we weren’t respectful of the people who did like the single. It’s probably true that joking to Giant Bomb’s Dan Ryckert about “what the fuck is wrong with people” was a step too far, even though I’d hope most know where I’m coming from. But as a critic, it’s my literal job to assert an opinion. The reason I don’t read reviews before I write about a game is because I’m trying to hone my own thoughts. Similarly, I can’t worry about what the developers might think or how a fan might react. I don't need to caveat every thought with "but it's OK if you think differently." It's implied.

That said, they’re right. Sometimes a game isn’t for you and dunking is cheap. People have done this to Dynasty Warriors for years! When a series doesn’t change, maybe it’s for a reason: people are OK with it.

I still contend Sonic’s current 3D incarnation is foundationally flawed, though, and a different execution would please more people. Look at Sonic Mania, for example. Sega’s struggled to produce a competent 2D Sonic game for years, to various successes and many failures. It’s been the same thing with 3D Sonic, and fuels the Sonic Cycle. Part of the problem, I’d argue, is because Sega itself does not internally understand what people want from a Sonic game. Sonic Mania was built by fans who knew what they wanted, and 3D Sonic could benefit from a similar experiment.

This is a tremendously good point, actually. Despite all the advancements 3D platformers have made since Super Mario 64 revolutionized our understanding of them, most have stuck to Mario 64’s playbook by being slow, deliberate affairs. Speed has been virtually lost in the transition to 3D. Can you imagine playing a game like Super Meat Boy in 3D? It’s 2D for a good reason: nobody’s figured out how to pull it off in 3D yet. The most dramatic moments in Sonic Forces, for example, happen in cutscene form, with the player pulling off wild and dramatic jumps without any control over the character’s movement, sans the occasional QTE.

We couldn’t be on different pages here, and it puts me at a loss.

I can’t speak to how the later stages of Sonic Forces play because I’m unwilling to play more of it. Given my reaction to the opening hours, it seems unlikely “alternate paths” would prompt a shift. But I also can’t argue with this person’s experience, even if it doesn’t invalidate my own. I can dislike the game, they can like it.

Still, it’s weird. It’s strange to play a game and have such an utterly different reaction that you can’t see the other side. I'm happy games can prompt divergent reactions; too often, there’s a conformity of opinion about whether a game is good or bad, when it would be more interesting if there was a greater range. I’ve long wondered if there is something unique to games, due to their reliance on mechanics, that prompts consolidation. Hard to say.

Several pointed me towards critic Jim Sterling, formerly of Destructoid and now of YouTube, who published a 12-minute video about Sonic Forces, calling it “a game I actually liked.” Sterling, a self-professed but lapsed Sonic fan, spoke to the groupthink around such games:

“Annoyed me the least” is interesting praise, but it’s also very Jim Sterling, a critic known for his colorful writing and commentary. He’s also a person willing to go out on a limb to praise (and criticize) games you wouldn’t expect, making his response particularly interesting. His point about Sonic fandom is notable, though.

Fandom is weird, prone to lashing out, and often lumped into a singular entity, when it’s really groups of smaller communities under a single umbrella. It speaks to the problems Sega has with trying to figure out what to do with Sonic in the first place. There’s a contingent of Sonic fans who grew up with Sonic, but a huge reason Sonic remains relevant and popular and financially viable is because kids still love him. The Sonic comics and cartoons aren’t being produced for adults, they’re being made for kids.

Who to please? One group, or both? Sonic usually tries to do both.

The kid angle makes Sonic Forces all the stranger, set in a war-torn Earth where Sonic is presumed dead, only to be found in a space prison, where allusions are made to months of horrifying torture.

I don’t know that I’ve convinced myself there’s a reason to pick up Sonic Forces again, but I’ve appreciated the folks who reached out, despite my sarcasm, and explained why they liked it. Hearing from you has probably done more than playing the game.

Have thoughts? Swing by Waypoint’s forums to share them!