Spoiler-Free Review: Is Sonic Forces Worth It?

Sonic Forces released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows in November of 2017. Despite it being out for a good three years by this point, I barely played it for the first time back in 2020. It was back when my husband and I were quarantined and we were looking for cheap video games to play. Sonic Forces was only $20 at the time so we figured we’d try it out. While I will say I enjoyed the game, it was one of the more mediocre Sonic games I’ve played. Sonic Forces definitely has its shining moments, along with its flaws. In today’s post, I’m going to share my thoughts of Sonic Forces.

Its Relatively Cheap!

Sonic Forces is not a very long game (seriously it takes less than 10 hours to beat). Since you aren’t playing it very long, it’d be a huge ripoff if you had to pay the average game price for video games nowadays for a game you’re barely going to play. My husband and I only paid about $20 for our copy of Sonic Forces, and I’ll admit, if we had paid full price ($60) and then only got a few hours of gameplay in, I probably would’ve asked for a refund since that’s a total ripoff. However, for the amount of gameplay in Sonic Forces, $20 on the Nintendo Switch is pretty fair.

You also get free DLC called “Episode Shadow” which is a prequel to Sonic Forces. So, not only do you get a cheap game, but you also get extra gameplay content! I will say the extra gameplay only takes about 30 minutes to an hour, but its still really fun! You can probably still pick up a new copy of Sonic Forces for about $20!

The Game is Glitchy at Times…

Another reason Sonic Forces was probably so cheap is because it wasn’t totally flawless when they released the game. This game used to have a MAJOR glitching problem. It’s gotten better with time, but sometimes I noticed the game didn’t respond as quickly when I really needed it to. For example, you could be running and try to stop and the game wouldn’t register that I was trying to stop until it was too late. I noticed this happening around the times I was trying to jump from platform to platform especially.

I will say, I played this a year ago and it was way worse then, than it is now. I almost never had a problem playing the game the second time a year later. The game developers must have gone in and fixed some of the glitchy controls. But there were still some levels I had to try a few times just because my controls weren’t working totally right.

You Get To Create Your Own Avatar!

In Sonic Forces, your avatar is one of the main characters! Near the beginning of the game, you’re recruited by Knuckles to help defeat Dr. Eggman and Infinite. As you play the game, there are even levels where you play as your character!

When you design your character, you get to choose all sorts of things including: gender, what kind of animal you are, physical attributes (such as fur color), your clothing, your voice, and even a victory pose! And throughout the game, you can change up your character’s outfit as you unlock more clothing! Being able to design my character with such detail really made me more excited about them and I was more invested in their role!

Gameplay and Story

When it come to Sonic games, there’s not much deviation in how stages go. You have some side-scroller action along with more direct views of your path. When it comes to Sonic stages in this game, you can mostly expect the same thing you’ve seen in past Sonic games. One thing that is unique however, is you get to play as three different characters throughout the story of Sonic Forces which are: Sonic, classic Sonic, and your character you create. Sometimes there are even courses where you use multiple characters at once! All three characters have moves that are unique to them, so being able to play as all three was really fun!

I did enjoy the story of Sonic Forces, but it wasn’t the most thrilling Sonic game I’ve ever played. Because of how short Sonic Forces is, everything felt rushed, and the plot was moving along faster than it should’ve. There were a lot of times in the story where something would happen that seemed kind of random and the characters would be lowkey grasping at straws to explain why the event was important (in order to make sure the story made sense and to move it along quicker). Ultimately the story itself wasn’t all that bad, it just sometimes had holes that were filled too quickly.

The Soundtrack To Sonic Forces is AMAZING!

I’m not going to lie, my favorite part about this game is the music! It’s not the most amazing video game music of all time, but its pretty catchy and is definitely the kind of music you would hear in a Sonic game! I was humming one of the main songs “Fist Bump” all week as I was playing Sonic Forces again! You can tell the producers put a lot of work into their soundtracks. Something I appreciated about the music in each level was that it really fit the mood and what was going on in the moment. I feel like if a video game soundtrack is going to be really good, it needs to fit the game and the levels it accompanies. I feel like Sonic Forces’ soundtrack did a great job in contributing to what was going on in each moment of the game!

Conclusion

Ultimately, Sonic Forces wasn’t my favorite video game of all time, but I don’t regret buying it. If Sonic Forces was any more expensive than $20 I probably wouldn’t have bought it. If you are planning on purchasing Sonic Forces, make sure you get it for a good deal. Also if you’ve never played a Sonic game before and you were wanting to buy Sonic Forces to try out the series, I would suggest you find another Sonic game to try out first (see Sonic Adventure 2). Sonic Forces is not the best Sonic the Hedgehog game out there and if you play Sonic Forces first you might get a bad impression of the series as a whole if you’re not careful. Overall, Sonic Forces is not the best video game out there, but it does have its glorious moments. And if you LOVE Sonic the Hedgehog, you will really enjoy Sonic Forces!

Thanks for reading my review of Sonic Forces! If you liked today’s post, go check out other articles on my blog! If you are interested in my blog, make sure you click the follow button so you can be notified when I put up new posts!

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Are you a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog series? Have you ever played Sonic Forces? If you’ve played Sonic Forces already, what did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below!