Classic Sonic Forces His Way Into This Entry.

Sonic Forces is often coined as one of the worst games in the series but honestly as flawed as it is in areas i still think it makes for a pretty enjoyable experience all in all sure it isn't perfect but nothing is so I will dabble in why I think this entry is rather underlooked and deserves more credit that it gets as of current.

Visuals:
The first game to utilize the hedgehog engine 2 and in someways even generations and unleashed look better mainly because of the character models and textures but overall the game looks pretty good especially its city levels used in the premotional art quite visually appealing its not the best looking entry but it's solid enough

Gameplay (Classic Sonic):
Lets get this out of the way honestly yeah it does really suck to be honest I have no idea why they had to shoehorn him into this game the mania tie in is cool but the gameplay itself really blows its just degraded generations gameplay with a dropdash but outside of the dropdash he controls terribly and to make matters worse he has some of the weakest level design in classic sonic history no amount of good physics would fix this mess but I still had my moments of fun with him here so he is easily the biggest issue with forces but never the less we will move on.

Gameplay (Avatar):
I mean it's basically modern sonic gameplay with no boost on surface level but what makes this appealing is the different races/animals + wispon combinations that can make replaying and clearing stages satisfying as you can try to figure out the most optimal route with each wispon and alot of paths are only takable with certain wispons and each wispon can spawn with bonuses like a landing/stomp dash that when combined with racial abilities becomes fun to experiment with granted you can kind of just use bird + drill and anything + asteroid for bosses to kinda breeze through avatar levels.

Gameplay (Modern Sonic):
Probably the highlight of the game for most people including myself and honestly I barely consider it a downgrade from its previous installments and would still have it in the same tier as unleashed/colors/generations because sure the air boost can be OP but it can act as a triple jump of some sort and can be fun to use especially in 2d sections and the homing attack chains really well here the biggest issue is some level design in certain levels and the stomp being kinda slow and his acceleration without boost that sure are issues but minor ones at that i'd take it over having some kinda demerit gimmic being tacked onto the gameplay + the acceleration isn't a big issue as you're gonna be boosting 3/4's of the time as him anyways.

Soundtrack:
Banger.Honestly the forces soundtrack has so many really strong songs in it and is underlooked in the grandscope of the franchise I think some of its songs can easily fit into my S tier if I were to make a sonic soundtrack tier list and can make some of the levels its paired with super exciting with the spectacle of some of the QTE's and mini cutscenes.

Voice Acting:
I mean it's pretty on par with all the meta era games there really isn't much change in direction here until frontiers so we will just have to get to that when the time comes but everything i've said in my colors and generations reviews will apply here so if you'd like you can go read them for more context but no pressure stick here if forces is all you care for.

Characters:
Honestly there is some pretty bad dialogue but most of that is the translation being overly edgy but outside of a few really bad lines they feel pretty inline with how they should be here I think people blow "how bad" it is out of proportion and honestly the weakest characters here are tails and infinite for sure but everyone else is solid.

Story:
Yeah definitely one of the if not the weakest aspect of the game I appreciate the more "serious" tone it tried to take even if it failed and the mania tie in but outside of that... yeah its bad like really bad the "seriousness" falls flat with some of the dialogue being too cheesy and on the other hand some dialogue goes overly edgy and goes unbelieveable especially paired with it not actually matching up well with the events on screen overall a really weak narrative that doesn't really deliver anything or a message for that matter.The only message is surface level and its to not give up and fight for what you believe in as part of a resistence but yeah nah its unremarkable at best.

Replayability:
One of the best aspects here is replayability from the red star rings to the daily missions and missions in general there is alot here to come back too and the leaderboard was great before it got hacked/modded times but time attacking the game is still really fun outside of classic sonic as going fast with modern and avatar can be pretty unconventional in a good way and while maybe not sonic colors or generations levels of replayability there is still alot of fun to be had with this title.

Overall:
One of the most overhated games in the franchise because people only focus on what it did wrong without putting the perspective on what it exceeded in it's disheartening to see its "1.9" review on backloggd as that is criminally low for this title it should atleast be a 2.5 as at worst its just a mediocre game but I personally like this game alot and see it as the end to a controversial era.

Trivia:
This game was originally revealed as "Sonic Project 2017".