Sonic Forces - Sonic Was Always Good

[@CassiusStelar]

SONIC FORCES KILLED MY GRANDMA, OK

[@JM57-99]

What character was she using??

[@CassiusStelar]

@@JM57-99 *I* was the one playing. [Flashback] that day, I was lost in S Rank attempts, and I didn't see her trying to warn me

[@JM57-99]

@@CassiusStelar [Faded Hills starts playing]

[@thislink1519]

Capping killed my Pybro!

[@sugarsmile7852]

I eat my grandma

[@Gnidel]

People expected something big because the premise was big. "Eggman conquered the entire world and recruited old foes!" And ruined every step of the premise. - Eggman - it doesn't really show how world looks like under Eggman's rule. Returning stages but mixed Eggmanland is something that writes itself. - Conquered - entire conquest is done offscreen with black screen with text. - Entire world - it sounds like another world adventure like Unleashed but doesn't really explore it. Wouldn't it be cool to see polluted Seaside Hill, Mazuri where Eggman is doing petty revenge for that rock, Robotnikland in ruins of Station Square... So much lost potential to explore the changed world. - Recruited - no, he didn't, those are illusions. It would be so interesting to see what would convince real Chaos and Shadow to join Eggman. It's interesting mystery that got ruined. - Old foes - Only Zavok got a proper boss fight. Metal Sonic got Infinite 3 reskin, which is disappointing. Chaos and Shadow got defeated in one shot in a cutscene, so we don't even fight them... Because of that, the game was a big bundle of disappointment. It simply promised too much and didn't deliver anything. If it promised as much it provided - decent simple adventure without annoying alternate gameplay styles and filler - it would be better received.

[@galten7361]

@Gnidel We already saw Eggman wins scenarios in CD if you mess up and in Unleashed. There's really nothing new in it Forces did besides throwing in a transparent attempt to pander to the cut of the fandom into the DiC shows and Archie with Fleetway.

[@rynobehnke8289]

And you didn't even mention the expectations people on on Infinite after all the hyping up the trails made and him having this OP rock that matched Super Sonic from Mania and all.

[@charmyzard]

There had to be a degree of false advertisement in there somewhere indeed.

[@galten7361]

@rynobehnke8289 The expectations were just him being another Shadow and otherwise not matching fanfic ideas. The actual idea behind Infinite is that he was a merc who wished he could be a king in the post-apocalypse and made up some fantasy world where he was some mega badass killer but got smacked around by Shadow and that made that fantasy world die. He's frankly interesting for a Sonic villain since he's pretty much just its version of a spree killer or mass killer soldier under Eggman. He'd be someone who'd post on reddit on how Rick Sanchez or BBC Sherlock or whatever comic supervillain is just like him who got magical jewelry that allowed him to blow up anyone who looked at him funny.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

They could have had a sonic cd time travel system for classic sonic where he had to go back to the past and fix the world after eggman turned it into a bad future. I wish green hill looked more like palm tree panic bad future. This comment also took the words out of my mouth. Forces was such a disappointment and has tainted the sonic lore for a long time They took one of the most wanted plots for sonic and ruined it.

[@LoudToon99]

I think another factor to why Forces gets this hyperbolic PTSD reaction is that it was arguably the accumulation of alot of problems people had in with the 2010's decade of Sonic, combined with how it was hard to be a Sonic fan in peace at the time. It made alot of fans, especially those of the 2000's games, become really vocal about how Sonic was being mistreated and thus becoming more appreciative of the 2000's era games for what they tried to accomplish.

[@theimpersonator7086]

TelekinesticMan made a recent good video on how 3D Sonic level/game design had fallen into a lot of repeptive traps over the years like Homing Attack chains, very automated sections, etc. Feel like Forces was the culmination of all of those traps.

[@CanaldoZenny]

I also believe Sonic Forces is the crystallization of that brand of 2010's Sonic, particularly western Sonic. One of the core pillars of the Sonic IP in the 2010's was the social media accounts, and the people in charge of those social media accounts would often engage by making fun of how bad Sonic games were. It clearly worked, because they got a lot of attention and followers for it. It was one of the few things people liked about Sonic back then, the social media. Forces' writing is like Tweeter Sonic writing. Someone here already pointed how Forces feels like Sonic Team was trying to please everyone to the point the game felt like a game generated by Reddit posts. The fact this game got a Sanic T-shirt DLC shows what the target audience for this game was. It truly was a sad and pathetic videogame.

[@snakey888]

The irony is that Sonic was way more mistreated in the 2000's than Forces even comes close to.

[@atavious2491]

​​@@CanaldoZenny So you're saying that social media ruined Sonic? Yeah I can quite see that. Although I think some are right to say that it was still wasted potential in the sense that they could've done more than just reuse things that have been done before. It doesn't add anything new and hence, only adds onto mediocrity. So I still think it was wasted potential. You don't have a clear vision or direction on where you want to go. I think some can agree that it's still wasted potential nonetheless.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@snakey888true!

[@rando6677]

This video is longer than all of Modern sonic stages in this game lol 💀

[@Hyp3rSonic]

Is that true tho? 🤔

[@starfGD]

​ @Hyp3rSonic actually yeah all modern sonic stages is 10 minutes, look it up lol

[@Hyp3rSonic]

@@starfGD well, I think my best times on all modern sonic stages are less then the videos length. Anyways, ik that my Mortal Canyon PB is 54.54

[@bonnymel4506]

@@Hyp3rSonic Surprisingly yes, if you count the average time to beat every boost stage, you do get around 25 minutes This game is mostly Classic Sonic

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@bonnymel4506ik this is kinda late, but that actually makes sense. Classic Sonic does have actual level design, barring his controls Also. Iron Fortress takes like 2 minutes and 30 seconds to 3 minutes

[@Kriseiri]

the thing about Forces is that it's not really "bad", just mediocre to an almost malicious degree. it's the most 5/10 thing to ever exist.

[@Gabriel-cq3cq]

Funny you say that,considering I also put forces around 5/10 it’s not an absolutely awful game like lost world, but it doesn’t do anything we haven’t already seen. And the stuff it does do is substantially worse than the games it originally came from. I used to hate forces, but nowadays I just don’t care about the game enough to bash on it so much.

[@CringusMcDingus]

How is lost world awful? I don't think it's good or anything, but it's not so atrocious that no one should speak of it! Not defending it or anything, I just feel like the hate is a little exaggerated

[@Gabriel-cq3cq]

Oh no I’m definitely over exaggerating, and it’s not like i ignore lost world entirely, I’m talking about it right now aren’t I? It’s just that lost world isn’t trying to be a sonic game at all. It was a Mario game first and a sonic fake second, and it didn’t even do a good job at copying Mario galaxy. I mean cmon, they didn’t even bother with zavok spiky gauntlets, lava castles, growing big and spewing flames out of his mouth? Could you make a more unoriginal villain than that. I could go on and on but the point is, lost world doesn’t try to be a sonic game. Almost everything that makes sonic “sonic” is totally gone here, mainly through gameplay. Hopefully that answers your question cringus

[@CringusMcDingus]

@@Gabriel-cq3cq oh, ok

[@pinhe4d321]

Did you play both Mario Galaxy and Sonic Lost World​@@Gabriel-cq3cq

[@graemehutton2433]

Forces feels to me a game that was trying to please as many fans as possible and in doing so pleased none: "you guys like boost games? Sure! You still think Classic is best? Have him too. All you furry fans wanna make your OCs? Go ahead. You guys want the Freedom Fighters vibe? Go for it! You want another dark, emo animal villain? By all means. Wisps? Sure!...." and so on, so on. It's like if an AI tried to make a Sonic game based entirely on Reddit posts.

[@theimpersonator7086]

Yeah, the classic saying of "By trying to please everyone, you please no one." Trying to please every single group in the Sonic fanbase likely isnt possible, best have different teams that work on seperate games.

[@manzanito3652]

Another "sonic team puts elements from previous games without understanding why people liked those games"

[@c0npl3xOP]

You tired of having to collect the emeralds. Well you can just buy super sonic for free!

[@Blanktester685]

would be nice to just have the actual freedom fighters then just the "vibe" but then again they would just be inferior to the original portrayals so it wouldn't matter that much.

[@graemehutton2433]

@@Blanktester685 agreed. I don't know why they don't put them in a "Classic Sonic" game: they clearly want a different set of supporting characters between the two styles- can you imagine the hype if they stuck Sally in a game instead of some random new lizard girl? I know for some fans it wouldn't be a big deal, but if you're banking on 90s nostalgia it seems a no brainer.

[@beanxiiicriii]

I cannot believe I read a title with “Sonic Forces” and “Sonic Was Always Good” near eachother.

[@lightzthestarz]

Had to reread it, even as someone who watches all these

[@luccaassis2148]

@@lightzthestarz Even Lost World got the title, despite being the worst mainline game 😬

[@Mister_Jay_Tee]

It absolutely is not. ​@@luccaassis2148

[@charmyzard]

@@luccaassis2148 Right, yet TSR didn't.

[@CanaldoZenny]

"Was always good" implies past-tense: Sonic used to be good, now he is not.

[@galacticspecter4364]

I think the main reason Forces has such a negative legacy is the state of the Sonic series when it came out. Coming off of Lost World and Sonic Boom with a game that’s just mediocre was the last straw for a lot of Sonic fans. 2017 was the year Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey and Resident Evil 7 came out, all these long-running game series were redefining themselves to widespread praise. Meanwhile Sonic was just throwing out another budget title that was a worse version of a game that came out 2011.

[@theimpersonator7086]

Seeing Mario Odyssey give Mario a legit Spindash, but Sonic Forces having very bland level design was something lol.

[@offlineterminated]

For freaking real. One thing that many “pessimist” fans have said that always got under my skin is that Sonic isn’t in the best place he could be, or that the newer games are buggier and are not up to quality compared to other franchises. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’m beginning to see their point. Why does Sonic always have to released rushed games that are barely finished and end up getting a 5-7 on metacritic? It’s barely below the bar and the franchise deserves better than this.

[@ClassikSprites]

24:50 To clear up some confusion, Sonic Forces (the actual game itself) was only in development for 1 year (2016-2017). The rest of the development time was spent on the conceptual stage (2014-2016) and the development of Hedgehog Engine 2 (that started in 2013 after Sonic Lost World).

[@manzanito3652]

4 years to make an engine and inmediately throw it to the trash after 1 game in favor of unreal, because these people couldn't make one good decision to save their lives.

[@dirtkiller23]

​​​@@manzanito3652to be fair, HE2 was later used in Mario&Sonic games, Sakura Wars, and Frontiers with Shadow Generations coming up next,so it's definitely not abandoned

[@manzanito3652]

@@dirtkiller23 Wasn't frontiers made eith unreal?

[@ContextuallyDeContextualized]

​@@manzanito3652 Frontiers wasn't made with UE

[@ChannelPup]

I think what made Sonic Forces such a sticking point among Sonic fans wasn't so much the game itself but the precedent it set. Like yeah, Rise of Lyric was a failed experiment, Lost World was super experimental, where all Sonic Forces really had to do was just make more of Sonic Generations in a new console generation. Now I didn't own a Wii U so I missed out on Rise of Lyric and Lost World until it came to PC, so this was my first post-Generations 3D Sonic game, and it was just disheartening to see that a completely non-experimental game that used existing playstyles that were good, could unearth brand new issues seemingly out of nowhere. And it raised the question of like, is this just what Sonic games are now? Tiny levels? Barely any player input? Fortunately Frontiers proved me wrong.

[@CanaldoZenny]

10:25 It is so weird how you're so passionate about Sonic as a character and a game IP, but never delved into creative work because of it. As an artist (not a good one btw) who picked the pencil in the childhood and learned to draw because of the influence of Sonic and later even made his own Sonic OC and fanfics I can safely say that Sonic the hedgehog is more than just a videogame. For me, and this always been the case, Sonic, the real Sonic, is the drive to pursue creative endeavors. The spark that one need to do something. You said once Sonic was a very appealing character and that his design was a work of a genius, and I think that was a starting point for a lot of artists. I don't know how to explain this because I'm not a professional, but there's something in Sonic you cannot find in many places. Sonic is one of those once-in-a-generation creations that grows so large that it surpasses the medium it came from. I believe the original Sonic Team created something truly special, and every time some engage with Sonic they tap into that special mind-space that let you achieve great things. This is why I cannot bring myself to hate "modern" Sonic, at least the Sonic games from the 2000's, and all the weird yet fascinating things this fandom has created over the years. I think this is why hardcore Sonic fans dislike the 2010's games so much, but love Frontiers. Frontiers is a mess of game design, but unknowingly or not, the devs, in a few moments, tapped into that strange special place that made the game resonate with Sonic fans and artists. I haven't seen so much fan art and fan music inspired by a new Sonic since Black Knight in 2009! It is that spark, that inspiration to draw, to learn to compose music, to make your own game, to express yourself, that is what Sonic the Hedgehog is to me. Far more than just a character or a videogame. And some good things came out of the Forces' Avatar! A lot of people use the avatar customization as the starting point for making their own OCs. On Steam' forums there's always people making fan arts of their Forces' avatars and posting there. Many people struggle with coming up with character abilities or clothing, so the Avatar customization helps cross that starting line. On gamebanana there are mods to add more species to this game, like dragons. In fact, many of the new characters introduced in the IDW comics began as Forces' Avatars. They used the avatar as a starting point to get the initial idea for the character, then refined the design on paper.

[@smflash]

I don't think it's all that weird. I've been a Sonic fan since I was 5 or 6 and also never made my own OC. Yes, I did write fanfiction, and I did attempt to draw the characters, but I never made a self-insert or any other original character that existed within that world. Like Pariah, I only really cared about the characters in the games. (Also, maybe that's part of the reason why I was never able to get into the comics as a kid since those characters didn't feel like Sonic characters. Design-wise, the Archie characters don't look like they're from the same universe (stuff like having human hair and their body proportions). I also grew up with Sonic X and wasn't really a big fan of the human characters. So basically, the concept of making my own character wasn't appealing when Sonic himself existed. That, and all of his friends). But as someone who has been in the Sonic fandom for a while, I understand the prevalence of Sonic OCs. Actually, I'd be lying if I said I didn't make my own OCs, though they only served plot purposes or were created for that one time I experimented with writing a fanfic about how people who aren't associated with Sonic would react to getting mixed up with the cast's shenanigans. That latter case was written before The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog came out.

[@MrCostard27]

Pariah is working on a sonic fan comic (i think)

[@タカトー年1998]

"Why this game? Why is this one so much worse than anything else the series has done before?" & "But I don't really know why people would expect so much for this game." The thing with games like Lost World, Boom and similar stuff is that those games all had new gameplay styles. Forces was going to use the boost formula again and basically every boost game is beloved (let's ignore the Werehog in Unleashed). So people were expecting a return to form. A return to Colours, Unleashed and/or Generations. *Edit: Yes, even Colours is beloved. Doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with that. It is beloved and it certainly was even more beloved before Forces came out.* People especially thought this because they marketed the game with the words "from the team who made Sonic COLOURS and Sonic GENERATIONS!" (or something similar to that). So, people were rightfully excited because those games are popular which can only mean that Forces must be similar if it's made by the same people. Nobody could have thought that this statement basically was a marketing lie. I mean, sure. Companies lie all the time. But that statement basically was a straight up lie JUST to market the game. Technically speaking it wasn't a lie because (for example) the writers were the same, but we all know that nobody thought about the writing when they told us that lie. It's technically speaking not false marketing but we all know that in all actuality...it is false marketing. It was similar to what Gamefreak pulled with Pokemon Sword/Shield. Only with Gamefreak it was actually a big deal due to how much bigger Pokemon as a franchise is in comparison to Sonic. Also, the Pokemon community was actually surprised by how bad Sword/Shield turned out (I actually liked Gen 8, but many people didn't). In other words: they weren't as desperate for good games in their franchise as the Sonic fanbase was. People were also pretty charitable towards Sonic Team & SEGA in the timeframe before Forces released. Why? Well, firstly people were just desperate for a new good Sonic game due to how much the franchise and it's community was being viewed as a joke...and secondly people thought "finally they listen to the fans and give us what we want. A new boost Sonic game!" Also, like I'm gonna mention below in a bit more detail...many KZbinrs hyped Forces way more up than it actually deserved which also raised expectations. Personally speaking I also thought that the game looked pretty bad in early gameplay showcases. But I was willing to give it a chance because...well, it's from "The Team who made Sonic Colours and Sonic Generations" so it had so be good, right? Surely it's just gonna be the early stages which play completely automated, right? Well, how foolish I was. And many other people were similarly foolish due to SEGAs completely disingenuous marketing. A lot of people since then have trust issues in SEGA and Sonic because Forces marketing actually actively lied to us. Sure, Boom was bad. Sure, Lost World was bad. But at least they didn't lie to us while marketing those games. And "enjoy a breathtaking adventure" or similar stuff doesn't count as a lie in my opinion because that's just general marketing stuff. Nobody gives anything about statements like that anymore. But "Enjoy this breathtaking adventure made by the people who made these games which you previously loved and adored and still play to this day!" ...Well, that's obviously a straight up lie. I also personally remember that a lot of KZbinrs in the timeframe shortly before Forces released were actually praising the game. Some even claiming "I got to play it and I think it's more fun than Mario Odyssey!" That also stirred up more hype about the game which made the whole experience even worse once people actually experienced the product. In short: Sure, Forces isn't really the worst Sonic game. But it was the one which felt the most disingenuously marketed and it actually felt like SEGA was lying to us. The only other game in the franchise where something similarly disingenuous happened was Sonic 06. That's also why people compare Forces and 06. Not because both games are similar in quality (Forces is sadly but clearly the better one) but because both games feel like complete a**holemoves towards the fanbase. Also something similarly important to mention here: Both games are embarrassing in comparison to similar games which came out around the same time. Edit: Yes, Sonic Forces was only a 40€/$ game, but I just thought "Oh, they can't put the price higher due to how short Sonic games boost usually are." I was a bit worried about the quality of the game due to the 40€/$ price but that was explainable, at least to me (in some places it actually was fully priced, I think). Another edit: I personally also disagree with some of the games you listed as being "worse" than Forces. I enjoy the 8-Bit Sonic games more in comparison to Forces (but only the fan remakes). I enjoy Lost Worlds main version more in comparison to Forces. That game does have a huge amount of flaws but at least the gameplay is unique and not a sucky watered down version of gameplay style which I love & adore. And some stages in Lost World are actually fun to speedrun. Mainly the ones which have mostly 3D gameplay & no gimmicks. I would play Sonic & the Black Knight ANY day over Forces and I'm not just saying that because of the story. Every time I play Black Knight I have fun in doing so without any degrading thoughts towards the game (except the motion controls, but Dolphin fixes that). Every time I play Forces I don't have fun doing so because most of the time I'm just thinking "I should play Unleashed, Colours or Generations right now." I instinctively compare those games due to how similar the gameplay is and I instinctively get annoyed while playing Forces due to how much I compare it to it's boost predecessors. Sorry, but I just have to say it once: Forces sucks. It's terrible. Not because it actually is a bad game but because in comparison to daytime Unleashed gameplay or...well, all of Generations it just falls flat. And the only way for me to SOMEWHAT enjoy Forces is to shut out the nagging voice in my head which just continuously tells me "Unleashed is better, why are you playing this?! Stop playing this. Play a better game!" Also, they fu**ed up the controls. The acceleration feels completely off and that is a HUGE issue in my opinion. Is the game unplayable due to the controls? No. But does it feel bad & unnatural in comparison to previous boost Sonic games? Yes. And that's saying something because previous boost games also had issues in that regard. Another late edit: Every time I try to post my response towards @theomnigamer9177 KZbin basically just says no and deletes it almost instantly. Really fair that I'm getting attacked but am not allowed to defend myself. Thank you, KZbin. He is allowed to insult me multiple times, but I'm not allowed to respond. Great... Now, I'm just gonna post my response in here now: I mean...it's kinda funny how you call me insufferable while basically non-stop attacking me personally in your comment. Look at yourself first. I won't even entertain a comment that starts with "Your comment is just yapping." Grow up first. Maybe learn how to formulate a discussion. "Nice yap session you did on behalf of the Sonic fans who are insufferable and have bad opinions." Man, way to go presenting yourself as insufferable. Good job. Again, grow up first. Than we can talk about your..."arguments". "There is only one level that I enjoyed in that game because it felt like the Unleashed Team came in for 1 level." Wow, your subjective opinion certainly is fact and you have the wisdom on what makes a good game and what doesn't. It's not like subjective opinions are...you know...subjective? Look at Pariah's video on Sonic Colours. He thinks it's one of the best 3D Sonic games and his *subjective* reasoning is perfectly fine. But...I'm not really pointing that sentence of yours out because I disagree with it, but to showcase how unpleasant you present yourself here. "I'm right, you're wrong and that's fact!" -you, basically. Again, look at yourself first. Maybe tone down the personal attacks and stop calling opinions which aren't yours dumb. Maybe than people would be willing to talk to you. "It’s because it’s a game made by Sonic Team" It might shock you, but not every Sonic Team game is made by the same developer team. Adventure 1 & 2 had different people working on it. Unleashed & Black Knight had totally different teams working on it. And so on. Different people working under the label of "Sonic Team" doesn't mean anything which is just common sense for most people. Also, while I usually don't like to bring up likes on my comments...148 people disagree with you. Not really an argument but showcases perfectly fine how a portion of the Sonic fanbase felt towards Forces & why they felt the way that they did.

[@charmyzard]

Correct. This game had its hand set to win, and they... bungled it up.

[@sugarsmile7852]

Sometimes i wonder why the comment section is better then the video Also i argue about sonic boom rise of lyric having false advertising by cutting contents that was shown in early trailers,but then i remembered the behind scenes of this game and the fact it was designed for consoles that wasn't the Wii U so it gets a pass i guess

[@azylan]

sonic fans can handle a game with poor ideas, a game that is janky, a game that is confusing... but we can't handle a game that feels cynical and soulless. between the total lack of vision involved in the game, the shallow attempts to pander to every single demographic of sonic fan at once, the regression in gameplay and story compared to previous games, and the most disingenuous marketing campaign sega has pulled since 06, forces felt like a big middle finger to anybody who was invested in sonic as a franchise. pariah said he didn't believe that forces was a soulless and cynical game, i disagree. a game pumped out without a vision is inherently cynical, it felt like this game only existed to perpetuate the sonic franchise and to turn another profit rather than to share something valuable and interesting with the consumer. say what you will about the storybook games, or about 06, but at least those games were interesting. even lost world had some interesting mechanics to play around with. there was clearly some thought put behind making these games memorable and impactful, even if they failed in the end. i cannot say the same for forces. if pariah believes otherwise then i'd like to hear his opinion but he didn't really explain these things in the video. maybe he has different ideas than i do about what it means for a game to be cynical.

[@タカトー年1998]

@@sugarsmile7852 Cutting content is a shitty thing to do but that part is at least understandable and happens all the time in gaming. That's just something we sadly have to deal with. But there is a difference between "sorry, we couldn't finish all the environments for the finished product, but we tried our best." in comparison to "sorry, we told you this game was made by the people who made games which you previously loved, but in actuality it wasn't. But thanks for the money anyway!" The first statement doesn't feel like a lie to me because if they had more time & budged Sonic Boom could have turned out different. When they showed early Sonic Boom trailers they probably were actually planning to include all the trailer content into the final product. The second statement wouldn't change with time & money. They knowingly lied to us from the get-go with Forces and that lie wouldn't suddenly become true with more time & budget. So in short: I think there is a huge difference between showing stuff which sadly doesn't make it into the final product & straight up knowingly lying into our faces. Sonic Boom felt like tough luck in that regard. Forces actually feels malicious towards the fanbase. Not malicious by Sonic Team/the devs who worked on the game but by the people who marketed the game & the higher ups at SEGA.

[@stanzacosmi]

fun fact. if you actually look at how the acceleration works in sonic forces, and how the boost gauge works, you can actually see that sonic's physics act more like an automatic version of lost worlds' run button and boost is super sonic's boost with a slapped on meter

[@techmuse8]

14:28 “Only the Avatar is capable of mastering all special character abilities.” Had to make that reference myself as a massive fan of ATLA lol.

[@shu7429]

I think it's a little in poor faith to say everyone who worked on this game isn't proud of the work they did. Aside from Ohtahni there are probably tons of people that worked really hard on certain aspects, environment designers, artists, level designers, sound designers etc. It's just a shame their work went to making something that was ultimately very underwhelming.

[@gadget8637]

Not to mention, there are only 3 level designers for Forces. All of which were very inexperience

[@MrRobosquad]

Sonic Forces is genuinely a really fun game--if you do all the missions/S Ranks/collectables. Those feel like the real game, with the standard A-to-B runthrough being easy mode, and when you're going for them the short levels actually really come together. Absolutely how I would recommend anyone play the game, and a pretty good time. It actually handles its extra challenges better than several other Sonic games. The tight time trials and ways you have to consider use of boost or movement with Classic Sonic is...challenging and fun!

[@Fewix_]

Waiting for sonic schoolhouse - sonic was always good

[@Angie2343]

Or Sonic Unfderground - Sonic Was Always Good.

[@bigfanofsb653]

Classic Sonic's level design feels like they are designed around the physics of the original games but then they saw that the physics of forces were not half as good so added a bunch of springs all over the place.

[@mau2172]

Literally on the lowest point of my week right now and i load up my feed to see you dropping this video like it's nothing. Felt like getting a heart attack but good

[@DonutSwordsman]

And elden ring dlc comes out soon!

[@mau2172]

​@@DonutSwordsman that is true, don't know why in the world you're bringing that up in a sonic video though

[@starrush1818]

I hope your weeks will start to get better. I'll pray for you! Also yeah his videos are awesome

[@mobas07]

Sonic Forces fails at everything it set out to do, that's why people hate it. It has Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic but both of them play worse than in Generations. It has boost style levels but they're worse than the ones in the other boost games. It had a great premise with the story being more of a focus and a more serious tone, and then we got an absolute mess of a plot that barely makes any sense. The avatar was shown off as this amazing thing where you could make your own character like in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, but the visual customisations sucked and the gameplay was just a worse version of Sonic but with wips (even though there's no reason why Sonic shouldn't have been able to just use the wisps himself). Basically after Generations they released Lost World which was terrible, then we waited all this time and were hyped up by the trailers showing all these cool things, and then when the game actually came out it was a complete let down. People are completely justified in hating this game, it scarred people so badly that now when we see Shadow boost in a straight line for a half a second we all have PTSD flashbacks to Sonic Forces. I remember when the Frontiers gameplay trailer dropped and Sonic was able to accelerate smoothly and the stomp impact sound played when you hit the ground instead of when you pressed the button, I was genuinely relieved because any scraps of faith I had in Sonic Team had been completely shattered after Forces. Sonic Forces was so terrible that they managed to mess up Sonic accelerating forwards in a straight line, that's the level the game is at in a lot of people's eyes.

[@Voltricity435]

the fact that they screwed up sonic accelerating in a straight line is truly remarkable

[@gameman5804]

Forces has problems, dude… but PTSD isn’t justified. Even with all that said, the hate this game got was overblown as shit and if Sonic Team had another year, everything could’ve been more fleshed out and refined. From the complaints on Linearity, Hedgehog Engine 2, Custom Avatar standing in for Sonic’s Friends, etc… Now to go off on a tangent, You know what I think about Frontiers, in spite of giving it some deserved leeway? Frontiers is overcorrection. It was made for people who never played a Sonic Game, or the ones who think linearity was the main problem with Sonic Games. Sure the writing is better, and it’s fun to run around the open worlds, but it feels too generic. Plus any level from Forces is better than Cyberspace because the controls make me wish I was on autopilot. With what Sonic X Shadow Generations is trying to do, it honestly looks like a combination between Forces and Frontiers. On the Forces end, SXS Gens looks like a more refined version of that in terms of controls and level design… and I think this is THE direction Modern Sonic Gameplay should be.

[@mobas07]

@@gameman5804 I agree with that last part, SXSG is exactly what I wanted from Forces. It plays pretty similarly to Generations but adds the bigger set pieces and QTEs from Forces. I liked Frontiers but the worst part of that game for me was the open world. If it was just level based with the guardians being mini bosses and the titans being the final boss of each "zone" that would honestly be an improvement to me. I don't dislike the cyberspace level designs but the controls are no good. Sonic is way too slow and can't drift, the boost doesn't hurt enemies and the homing attack is super slow and laggy so fighting enemies is awful. SXSG seems to fix most of that though so that's a plus.

[@legoboy7107]

@@Voltricity435 It's literally because they romhacked Lost World's run button into a fake attempt at acceleration, what happens in simple terms is that when you hold forward you start in Lost World's "walk" mode, and then after moving forward a bit the game automatically turns on "run button" mode, making that sudden jerk forward in speed. Sure, they buffed the speed of both modes considerably but it's still bad. Why on earth they decided to jerry-rig Lost World's run button into a fake attempt at acceleration instead of just having normal smooth acceleration (which is REALLY easy to do, I could probably load up a Unity project and implement it on some cube myself in 10 minutes and I've never even touched Unity in my life) I will probably never understand. Surely they didn't hard-code the run button THAT hard in the Lost World framework that they literally couldn't change it...because if so that's especially bad.

[@gameman5804]

@@mobas07 The open world is EXACTLY what I mean in terms of over-correction, and is why I genuinely feel a little bitter with Frontiers today.

[@anotherblob8095]

"Not to toot my own horn, but I gotta say, I think my gameplay here makes this game look pretty fun." Nah.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

I personally agree. But for me, I was already speedrunning levels from it for quite a while now(at least 5 years)

[@legoboy7107]

Honestly it does a lot of the time. I saw him performing so many tricks, skips, and other cool Sonic-y stuff to get good times that I've NEVER seen anyone else perform ever, he did genuinely make a lot of parts of the game (mostly 2D areas admittedly) look pretty fun to master.

[@anotherblob8095]

@@legoboy7107 I still don't think it looks fun because I know and can see how stiff the movement in Sonic Forces is, and the amount of stuff that can just be flown over with a jump or a boost double jump isn't fun either... I do that too, it's just boring to me.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

@@anotherblob8095 understandable 👍

[@anotherblob8095]

@Stroutta-oh7mj Yeah, I did, but he also said the boost jumping is a good thing while I said it's not fun and just boring... I could've also said that Classic Sonic is atrocious in this game but I could look past C Sonic being extremely tedious and boring if Modern Sonic was fun, but no.

[@frickerrific2813]

Honestly… upon further retrospective… sonic forces was a step in the right direction after lost world and boom 🤯

[@Hyp3rSonic]

Technically true 👍 😂

[@AdamWright-t7w]

lmfao

[@dondada3638]

Less of a step forward and more of a turning to face the right direction

[@dmclsl03]

Yes, it's overhated indeed, and I'm still gonna hate it to the grave lol

[@technicallyinept2120]

Based on

[@Hyp3rSonic]

@@dmclsl03 honestly? BASED

[@LyokoGem]

God, a fair critique on Sonic Forces, you love to see it.

[@NovaRizezz]

It's a good day when Pariah drops

[@Rainyar4779]

Where did Pariah drop? Is he okay?

[@Zejgar]

25:01 It's fine, the cash grab would come later in the form of the attempted Super Sonic DLC

[@Sydney_Angelyt]

@Neawn-by5piAnd they learned absolutely nothing with Colours Ultimate

[@gameman5804]

@@Sydney_Angelyt No they learned from Ultimate, all right. Sonic Team is behind SXS Generations with even some of the people who worked on it returning. I'm pretty sure Sega Blacklisted Blind Squirrel after Ultimate... I hope.

[@CanaldoZenny]

24:54 This game took so much time to make for a myriad of factors, some outside of Sonic Team's control. After shipping Lost World, Sonic Team began development of the next iteration of the Hedgehog Engine, to be used in next generation hardware. The development of HE2 took around 4 years to complete, leaving a little over a year for ST to make Forces. They had the planning all complete, but I assume they were expecting Sega to give them time to make the game after wrapping up HE2, which didn't happen because Sega wanted to keep the momentum of Mania's release and it the Switch's first year in the market. It is important to know ST doesn't make only Sonic games, they also develop technology to be used in other Sega games. It is known that Puyo Puyo and Sakura Wars also use HE, and it is believed ST aided in the development of some Yazuka/Like a Dragon games. Sonic Team is more of a label, internally they had different names, like Sega AM8 and Sega GE1. Many people come and go from Sonic Team since the beginning. Another thing that happened that impacted in the development of Forces was the disaster that was Sonic Boom. It suck you're not making a video about Boom because I believe the damage done by Boom RoL was far greater than '06. Why? Because at very least, '06 sold well and made a profit, which allowed Sonic to keep going and eventually make good games. Boom RoL sold so poorly and was so poorly receive it instantly damaged the entire brand of Sonic Boom, which affected the TV show and merchandise sales. Boom was Sega of America's idea, because they wanted their own spin on Sonic. The japanese branch didn't anything to do with it, but they invested a lot of money into it thinking the merchandise would give a good return. Lol no. Sega lost so much money with Boom they made many aggressive downsizing on Sonic Team and investments in the Sonic IP at this game. Many talented devs left to work at Nintendo, and the budget of Sonic was reduced, which is why Forces was a 40 USD game at launch. The Sonic IP was simply not valuable to Sega in the 2010's, especially after Boom. And Mania, despite being an amazing game and very well receive, didn't meet sale's expectations - taking 8 months to reach 1 million sales. Not great for a 20 dollar game that was "the best Sonic game ever". There even was internal talks about replacing Sonic for Persona's Joker as Sega's mascot. Everything only changed because of the positive reception of the first Hollywood movie, and later Frontiers. Forces was a victim of Boom's failure and Sega's upper management.

[@DeclanEDowns]

I have a bit of personal attachment for Forces as it was my second 3D Sonic game. I originally grew up with Sonic 2 through the SEGA Mega Drive collection on PSP, and when I got a Xbox 360, Generations was the first 3D Sonic I played, ever. However I then kinda forgot about Sonic up until 2016 when Mania and Forces was announced, I thought they look really cool, however I was more interested in Mania as I was a lot more familiar with Classic over Modern. It wouldn't be until Boxing Day 2017 that I remembered Forces. I went to Tesco to buy L.A. Noire on Nintendo Switch as that was my main gaming console I cared about, despite having a PS4, however the guy behind the counter said they didn't have it, but I didn't want to leave with nothing, so he went in the back and made a list of the Switch games they had, and the one that caught me was Forces, I honestly forgot about the game and decided to buy it, and even thought I was around 10p short, he let me have anyway. I got home and played it the rest of the day and I genuinely really liked it, even though for many people, I played the superior game before this. I'm a lot kinder to Forces due to reading up on the development history, that is a genuine reason why this game just missed the mark for people, but I am glad I ended up enjoying my time with the game, and even 100% the game on Steam years later. It's better as a classic arcade game, a pick-up and play type title. It's nothing truly amazing, but It did make me happy and, at the end of the day, that's what matters most sometimes.

[@CrappyProductionsOfficial]

People had high hopes for Forces, it's been advertised as the successor to Colors and Generations, especially Generations with Classic Sonic returning, that's why everyone was hyped. But when reality sets in and all we get is a fine enough story and boring gameplay, people became mad since all their hopes about the game was crushed. The game promised a more serious story and all we got is "friendship=win", and gameplay wise people thought it's gonna be like Generations but Forces not only had bad physics but also have a straight forward level design. So that's why people dislike Forces so much, because they were lied to by Sega.

[@TheMasonGamer]

I think we've far crossed the need for the title "Sonic was always good" at this point

[@jawoseye2902]

the title is in past tense tho

[@AnAverageGoblin]

to repeat an old comment I made (that got aggressive sonic fanboy attention lol) "Was sonic always good?" is a lot clearer of a title that would probably look less like bait on videos about the disliked games in the series.

[@TheMasonGamer]

@@jawoseye2902 “Always” means Sonic has never been bad, while in the same videos with that title many bad games are covered that Pariah himself says he doesn’t like

[@xamp_exclammark]

It's a parody of the IGN meme of "Sonic was never good". I'm pretty sure Pariah mentioned it pretty early on in the series or in one of his livestreams.

[@TheMasonGamer]

@ I’m aware but it’s just as false as that title. Being the title of a series defending most Sonic games, it just makes it look like glazing and comes across to most as misleading

[@ComboFood]

This game is probably my second favourite of the boost formula games behind Shadow Generations Good to see others that don’t hate it, Modern Sonic’s air dash is so satisfying to use and the visuals and locations all look amazing and it feels apocalyptic especially with how destroyed iconic places like Green Hills are, and the music even by Sonic standards is so good

[@AdamWright-t7w]

I love Forces!

[@Hyp3rSonic]

This is also my 2nd favorite boost game! (Of the ones I played!)

[@CanaldoZenny]

The moment Pariah's fans have been waiting for.

[@futureflea3917]

The real fans are waiting for him to be done with Sonic

[@atticussprague7592]

I think it was also that there were 5 years where forces was the only sonic game.

[@spritvio639]

I think the "bad game is better than a mid game because at least the bad game makes you feel something" only works to a certain point. Like if the game is bad because it's poorly designed and leads to a lot of frustration. I'd argue a boring game is better because even if you are bored the time you are spending isn't as dreadful.

[@タカトー年1998]

Ehh, I see what you mean but being bored can also be quite dreadful. Especially if it's something like the Werehog in Unleashed where the boredom is just worsened by the fun daytime Sonic gameplay.

[@spritvio639]

​@@タカトー年1998Yeah, Unleashed is a special type of dreadful in the first playthrough.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

@@タカトー年1998 yep

[@peanutbutterrocket]

Pariah always knows how to make the most funny intros lmao

[@TomboyMikayla]

"Why this game!? Why is this one so much worse than anything else the series has done before" 1. Because everyone was hyped for it 2. Because it was the most recent game 3. Because we waited 4 years for another main series Sonic game after nothing but Sonic Boom and Mobile games 4. Because Sonic Mania made it look even worse, Mario Odyssey and the Crash N.Sane Trilogy also came out the same year, 5. The False advertising (Chaos and the Gens Devs lie) 6. Because of Sonic's reputation in the 2010s 7. Because this is the most souless Sonic game, making games like 06 look like a masterpiece This vid should help: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jXXcqIqcgsRnhKcsi=UreWhuWFLYYsbYtC

[@snakey888]

This game certainly did not make 06 look like a masterpiece.

[@VirtuousAezon]

Alot of this could apply to many different sonic games, this game is no different from all the other flavors of garbage sonic games

[@TomboyMikayla]

@@VirtuousAezon Read the whole thing

[@VirtuousAezon]

@@TomboyMikayla my thoughts stay the same

[@TomboyMikayla]

@@VirtuousAezon Brand Defender

[@LolipooChimichanga]

22:35 You could say that about Sonic Frontiers A hodgepodge of ideas from other open world games like combat, puzzles, towers, with a majority of reused sonic stages slapped on with a lobotomized player controller that feels so off to play in. How is this a step in the right direction when it's basically in a different font?

[@Goobywoobygoo]

“Not very good like that’s something new to the Sonic series.” What was the title of this series again???

[@TDYL2009]

As someone who has recently beat the story book games everyone shits on them even when they are incredibly fun games with some of the best sonic writing in the series

[@adventuresteamstudios242]

Can't wait for the "Story of Sonic Forces", because i am going to tear this game's story apart, with no mercy.

[@Sonicjan]

2:00 They took an EXTRA long time to finish the game and so a lot of people thought, they'd finally use that time to actually make a good game without any big shortcomings. Turns out, it was still a rushed dumpsterfire and that even the story was set on fire as well...

[@ultrascarlet5275]

This game is so hated because it is catastrophically worse than Gens in every single aspect that it's depressing. People really believed that Forces would continue the streak of good games that was pulling Sonic out of its dark age, only to fail miserably.

[@cartoonamc9328]

Yeah people hate on sonic forces and its sad

[@ultrascarlet5275]

@@cartoonamc9328 Forces deserves the hate

[@cartoonamc9328]

@@ultrascarlet5275 why I think it’s good expect the story and classic sonic

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@ultrascarlet5275I disagree...somewhat

[@AdamWright-t7w]

@@ultrascarlet5275 disagree, somewhat

[@Kanata_Satou]

I have to say replaying this game after Shadow Generations to see if it was as bad is I remembered (since their gameplay and physics are fairly similar) was dreadful to say the least,even if it is a 3 hour game at most it somehow manages to drag out since Sonic Forces is unbearably mediocre,it makes you feel absolutely nothing while playing it,hell,Shadow Generations is a longer game even in a casual playthrough yet it felt like half the entire length of Forces because of how good and fun it is,Forces on the other hand is so mediocre and bland all I had in mind while playing was the damn Goal Ring.

[@xGhostNappa]

I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought classic sonic was the better part of forces

[@PTp1ranha]

I have a soft spot for this game. I acknowledge the flaws, but honestly I went in with tempered expectations and had a pretty good time (before the last 3 stages frustrated me). Sure I could be playing a better game, but sometimes I like having a quick and mindless romp. I actually had more fun here than I did with Frontiers. Which sounds like heresy, but I own up to the fact that I've got different priorities from most Sonic players. As I said, I do still agree with the criticisms, but... it just didn't bother me so much. Then again, I've always been a more casual, distant Sonic fan.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

I also had more fun playing Forces! (Compared to Frontiers)

[@lukeluke1894]

this game was the straw the broke the hedgehog’s back. I think the blandness and lack of vision was what actually insulted fans the most.

[@alexandrpeterberg390]

23:49 Pariah: It's like a little kid trying to copy their older sibling just doing everything they do and thinking that makes them as cool as their big sibling is, but every attempt it makes at trying to emulate better games fails spectacularly and the game overall ends up falling on its face. Me: Basically the Wii Team of Sonic Team/Morio Kishimoto in a nutshell.

[@YaBoiHandman]

I know I'm jumping the gun, but I'm really curious if Pariah is gonna use the Japanese or English dialogue for the Frontiers review. I could be completely wrong but I'm assuming since Ian Flynn wrote the dialogue that the English writing is the canon story? Again could be completely wrong.

[@galten7361]

@yaboihandman He'll focus on the Eng script since it was composed first but point out relevant cuts of the JP script since it tries to make the cast act more in-character to how SoJ sees them (see Amy and Eggman with Sage especially) I'm sure.

[@ChaosAngelZero]

Sonic had a rough transition to the eighth generation of consoles.

[@snakey888]

And to the 7th, and 6th, and 5th. Completely aced the 4th one though.

[@ahmedhasan4966]

Yes, it has (looking at you rise of lyrics)

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@snakey888what are those ones again?

[@snakey888]

@@Hyp3rSonic 7th is xbox 360, ps3, wii. 6th is Dreamcast, gc, ps2, xb. 5th is Saturn. 4th Mega drive.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@snakey888I sometimes forget about that. I mean, the different generations of consoles. Anyways, it was definitely bad(like, extremely bad) on the 7th and 5th

[@AlexanTheMan]

Ah yes the infamous "Just play Mania" game. I'd actually opine the timeline between Lost World and this game was much more awkward and disconcerting.

[@JakeThehedgehog-m1x]

Im genuinely shocked he actually like Claasic sonoc's gameplay..

[@Mrnoobestreturns]

For me not really. I rather have level design. Than no level design, because forces 3D level design has no level design, where it Makes me wonder, how did sega accepted that, or thought it was passable to release it in that state.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

I also loved classic sonic

[@LexStormA]

I think the main culprit of Forces' reception is time Prior to Lost World, Sonic would have major releases almost yearly, either with mainline games or larger spinoff series. Lost World to Forces was a noticeably big gap, one of the biggest in a decade. And it doesn't help that, at the time, one of the main arguments for "how to make Sonic good" was for ST to slowdown, take their time with the next game, and release a quality product. Forces sort of became that proof of concept. The gap between games raised expectations becauses fans thought they were shifting towards that direction. And when it turned out to be the same story, it crashed a lot harder because of that. Of course it was later revealed that they only spent ONE year on the game and the rest on developing the Engine, but it didn't change the fact that Forces really shot down that hope fans had And following that there's an even BIGGER gap between games, in one of the largest Sonic droughts (in terms of games) so far. Whereas in the 2000s era the franchise was releasing constant games with questionable quality, the late 2010s felt like the same quality but with much longer waits between titles. Couple that with Forces showing that "longer wait time =/= better game", the highest level of transparency from Sega and Sonic Team being twitter memes, and it's no surprise that fans started to grow a lot of resentment towards the franchise they once loved and stuck out for. Forces is far from the worst Sonic game, but it is the stick that broke the camel's back

[@AizakkuAnalysis]

There's no way he's going to say something positive about Forces... Is he?

[@luccaassis2148]

Kinda

[@pwispa9532]

Sorta, I mean he was more positive here compared to Lost World LOL

[@castform7]

It's more so ambivalence. Less "Sonic Forces has some good things" and more "Sonic Forces isn't great but it's not bottom of the barrel Sonic content".

[@luccaassis2148]

@@castform7 Exactly

[@ThibautMahringer]

I mean, graphics are nice and music is mostly good so there’s good points. Too bad everything in the gameplay and story sucks.

[@felixdaniels37]

For a lot of people, Forces is what shattered the illusion that Sonic Team was "back" in a sense. Ever since Unleashed, Colors, and Generations, Sonic Team garnered enough goodwill among the fanbase to the point where they could confidently say that they finally got their act together. After a streak of bad games that dragged Sonic Team's reputation through the mud, it seemed like they finally worked out a solid gameplay formula they could stick with and bring Sonic back to relevancy. Lost World meanwhile was seen as an experimental title that, while heavily flawed and not great, still had reasonable production value. That game still looks great graphically. Sonic Boom was a sponoff and was treated as such. Then Forces came along and it's just totally indefensible in every way. Sonic Team wasted FIVE YEARS on a game that's somehow more rushed than any of their post-06 games. Mania coming out of a few months earlier didn't help matters either, if anything the gulf of quality between them only highlighted just how bad Forces was. It's a total embarrassment that sent Sonic Team back to square one, and disillusioned a lot of people that had hope for them to be betrer than that.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Pretty sure they also spent most of the game’s development time just concept arting instead of developing

[@robertlupa8273]

_"This is an illusion, open up your eyes and/The pain persists"_ - Infinite's theme He was trying to warn us.

[@felixdaniels37]

@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778 Yeah, Frontiers also suffered a similar issue. Sonic Team in general has gotten REALLY bad at time management as of late.

[@shyguyissoawesomeguys]

​@@felixdaniels37i didn't actually know frontiers struggled with time management. but even still frontiers ended up pretty well off knowing that, especially the writing, since it could've been just as bad as forces was

[@sometf2player752]

16:37 apparently during development a lot of the levels were gonna be longer but they pulled a colors and ended up splitting them into multiple smaller levels

[@Hyp3rSonic]

Classic move💀

[@roberttaylr]

Crazy how the team made the greatest sonic game in 10 years got dissolved shortly after

[@Hyp3rSonic]

it's actually very crazy... but it makes sense(doesn't excuse the state that Forces released tho)

[@TehJellyLord]

I’ll emphatically disagree that Classic Sonic’s physics here is better than Sonic 4’s. What kills it for me is the jump controls mostly. The jump being as incredibly stiff as it is (Sonic cannot even accelerate midair with it, so if you lose speed or jump at a slower speed, you’re just stuck in that speed for the whole jump arch) and the fact that you lose any and all horizontal speed the moment you jump into an enemy, it just feels so wrong to me. Now I ain’t gonna pretend that Sonic 4 has amazing physics or anything, but at least you can still do stuff like loop jumps, jumping through and enemy and retaining all of your speed, and the air dash is broken and fun to use imo. And you can accelerate midair even if you start your jump at a slower speed. I will agree that the level design here in Forces for Classic is definitely better than Sonic 4’s stages, but I just disagree on the physics. Otherwise I fully agree with you here. I did have quite the visceral reaction to this game when it released, purely because I did totally fall for the marketing and in general I was a young and stupid kid back then, but I play Forces these days and I just feel nothing. It’s so easy it’s mindless, the physics just pail in comparison to Generations, the level design is so short and weak that even the best stages suffer from it, etc. it’s just a nothing game to me in just about every way, so while I don’t necessarily hate it I do find it to be one of the most boring Sonic games easily.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

Respectfully disagree. Forces is a very decent game(same for Sonic 4 Ep. 1) and Ep. 2 is just decent, i think. I had more fun playing Forces, however. Even more weird, is that i had the most amount of hours(about 355) for Forces, even tho its not my fav sonic game. That is Gens. Anyways, i had loads of fun playing all 4 of them

[@gameman5804]

Haven’t played 4 Episode 1 in a LONG time… but Classic Sonic in Forces is still better than Cyberspace Controls In 2D. I managed to complete that fucking marathon the day before the SPINDASH UPDATE! God dammit my thumb still hurts thinking about it.

[@TehJellyLord]

@@gameman5804honestly, Cyberspace’s basic controls might be some of the worst controls in Sonic, both 2D and 3D imo lol. The open zone controls tho are pretty nice, very flawed but nice.

[@gameman5804]

@@TehJellyLord Cyberspace Controls are fucking awful in general, but you feel it more in 2D. At least Classic Sonic had the spindash out the gate and the drop dash actually functions.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@TehJellyLordwould play any of those games over Unleashed anyway(for me)

[@MonkeyDanceAlongs]

Before i didn't get sonic. I would get frustrated. Sonic Forces playing itself and me having no expectations showed me what could be fun about Sonic. Forces was "baby's first sonic" for me so i think of it fondly for that. Thanks for breaking down nuance and not just passionately defending one side.

[@Gyomax9744]

I expected the video to be longer, but it will be good anyways Keep up with such great work!!

[@Angie2343]

The character creation feature is AWESOME!

[@Hyp3rSonic]

Agree

[@dreamareakoso3791]

as someone who was also there at the time, it was definitely the pre-release marketing that killed Sonic Forces, it was hyped up to an insane degree, almost everyone was hyped as hell, and the fact the game was so mediocre after the insanely high expectations? it crippled the game into the dirt, with insanely high highs, come insanely low lows, and those insanely high expectations turned into intense hatred

[@TheBoneHeadClan]

This video is laced with so much contempt. "That game sucked. This idea was stupid."

[@Hyp3rSonic]

Huh?

[@ASolidSnack]

Obviously much of the hatred has just become memetic but I think what was so bad about this for fans is that Generations had bought the franchise some good will, then Forces had all the exact same mistakes the series had been making for decades and made fans feel like they were a laughing stock again.

[@XPool]

I think the main reason Forces is so tarnished is, like you mentioned in passing, because of the way it was marketed and the time it was released. I remember back in the day that many people were genuinely excited for Forces, since it was the first modern Sonic game on all consoles, especially after the abundance of Boom content. You can hear the audience erupt when they see Sonic’s tan arms during the initial teaser 😭.However, when the game was revealed to be as short as it was, and the story was discovered to be as overly dramatic to the point of feeling like parody, rather than genuinely trying to be like SatAM and Archie, like what was expected, the people excited for it got burned, including myself. Not to mention that the concept for an Archie/SatAM type story, especially if written by Ian Flynn, was one of the most requested concepts for a mainline Sonic game story at the time, if I remember correctly. That most definitely explains why many younger fans, who weren’t around at the time, and people like you, who already didn’t care about the game building up to launch, don’t understand all the hate the game gets.

[@Slump9400]

I just bought forces and generations and I find myself playing forces more than generations rn …

[@persona4cat]

14:22 have you heard about this game called sonic battle

[@AdamWright-t7w]

Yes

[@AdamWright-t7w]

Never played it tho

[@Nyaalexi]

True story, I actually attempted to design a Sonic OC once. And I didn't get get very far with it. It kinda just turned out to be a joke, but also kinda turned into an official thing. It all started when I was a dumb kid, trying to design comics, it didn't even look like a Sonic character. Then later on, I tried drawing comics again, and actually made it fit in with the Sonic art style. Then I forgot about it for years, and then I dug up the old design, made one modern digital drawing of the character, gave him a name, and that's about all I did with him. lol. And around the time this game came out, I attempted to use the character creator to make him. And I kinda succeeded? Maybe. I don't hate this game, but I don't love it, either.

[@michaelkindt3288]

@10:49-.-I disagree. The double jump is so weak it might as well not even exist, and I normally like double jumps. I frankly have a hard time telling the bird even does a second jump.

[@CloudBuster2]

There is fun to be had with Forces, it's kinda like Frontiers' cyberspace with the short levels and bad controls but still fun to time attack

[@AdamWright-t7w]

Agree

[@SouliteAzure]

Context always matters. It isn’t just the fact that it was another bad Sonic game, the marketing, the advertising and all of the shit that went into pre-launch led us to believe we were getting something that we ultimately didn’t. Also happened before right? Context again. Shadow and 06 were only a year apart. Lost World and Forces are 4 years apart. We waited 4 years for what we got and that’s part of the issue with me and (I think) a lot of people in the community. The game tries to do so much and not a damn thing all at once and it’s very bad at both. At least, that’s how I view it.

[@bullymaguire-cu7eb]

More people understand why this game is 100 times more playable than rise of lyric like me?

[@Hyp3rSonic]

I never played rise of lyric. However, i had fun with Forces, but it still has flaws(like every sonic game in existence tbh)

[@JamesP7]

Well, yeah. Pressing down one button and making a sandwich is a lot more replayable than frustration and brokenness.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@JamesP7is that sarcasm? 🤔

[@JamesP7]

@@Hyp3rSonic No. Its the same reasoning as to why The Good Dinosoar is a worse movie than Brave.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

@@JamesP7 your point is??? Also, I barely watch movies, and I definitely didn't watch those 2

[@dondada3638]

Sonic forces is NOT better than lost world. Lost world had fun moments more than forces

[@AdamWright-t7w]

Generations is better than both games(imo)

[@raidenmei9064]

For me, I hate Forces so much because being boring is the worst thing a game can be. That's why Lost World and Forces are my least favorite 3D games. They have absolutely no staying power. I've gone back to 06 and Secret Rings, I regularly play Black Knight. I play my favorite levels in Shadow all the time. Every other 3D Sonic game I've gone back to time and time again. Forces is the only 3D game I've had absolutely no urge to go back to since its release. It was supposed to be the follow up to Generations gameplay wise, it was supposed to be a huge story with high stakes. Instead, we got nothing. Even the games I'm not to hot on gameplay wise give me something else to latch on to, like the level themes or the story. Forces fails in both of those regards too. That's at least my reason for hating Forces so much. I have a feeling a lot of other people feel the same way.

[@tivvy2vs21]

Actually, now that you mention it, forces could have had an almost advance 3 thing, if there were multiple playable characters that you could also mix and match with different avatars, damn that woulda been cool

[@MattTOB618]

11:39 Fun fact: Sonic CAN actually wall-jump in this game, but none of his levels have any areas for him to do it in, so you can only see him do it by hacking him into a level that _does_ have these areas. This could imply at least one of four things: 1. It's just leftover code from the previous games that never got used/removed. 2. One of Sonic's levels had a wall-jumping area that got scrapped. 3. Sonic was meant to go through one or more of the Avatar's stages at some point in development. 4. The Avatar was a late inclusion, and they had to divvy up Sonic's levels to accommodate them, accidentally taking all the levels with wall-jumps and giving them to the Avatar.

[@sonic5993]

It's been almost three years since you started this series and now we're just one game away from being up to date with the mainline games... crazy. Was a long and fun journey though

[@grawman67]

For me, the reason that I rank Forces as the lowest mainline game in the reason is the series is that it's not just rushed but everything feels like it functions but has little little ambition/competence in anything except the idea for the story. The Sonic levels are mostly straight lines that can be finished quickly, the story has a good idea but is the epitome of tell and don't show, the characters act so out of character that they're just there to proceed the plot, and the gameplay is mostly just holding boost without much testing your reflexes. It all feels like they were less than halfway through development or their best was pitiful. I didn't feel any spark from it like I did from even the worst mainline Sonic titles.

[@Captain_Arby]

The game is VERY lazily put together, there is no challenge in the modern stages compared to something like Unleashed's daytime stages for example. In Sonic Forces, you just hold X to win and that's it. All of the challenge from Unleashed is gone, and the characterization is even worse than anything in the previous games.

[@Carizmian]

I'm not a huge Sonic fan, but I enjoyed Sonic Forces and play it from time to time. However, I loved Sonic Mania even more.

[@quasar4780]

23:49 My man ruthlessly dissing Classic Tails' character

[@themissingbits6375]

I thought I was the only one who thought of Classic Tails when he brought that up.

[@mushroomdude123]

I don’t think anyone _actually_ thinks this is the worst Sonic game, but it’s kind of more the straw that broke the camel’s back. There was a 4 year gap between Lost World to Forces and 5 before Frontiers. It was rough knowing we had to wait so long for something so mid. After how long we spent in the Boom era, this just felt bad.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Yeah. Nobody likes mediocre slop. Sure it’s not bad but mediocre is not better it’s worse because mostly will be fine with that instead of getting good sonic games

[@JamesP7]

@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778The same reasoning as to why many movie/game reviewers will rate something mediocre or with missed potential far lower than something just bad.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778eh...

[@charmyzard]

Pariah doesn't seem to consider Forces is what we got after the BOOM disaster, making the franchise look without potential... when Forces was booming with potential.

[@CanaldoZenny]

Pariah not reviewing the games in cronological order and skipping games like Boom and Runners (also made by Sonic Team) sometimes can be a detriment to his reviews. I know he wants to review every game as a isolated piece that you can buy and play now, but when it comes to Sonic more often than not context plays a huge role in how a game came out to be and how it is received.

[@shinkai9kami162]

@@CanaldoZenny A game should be reviewed by itself. That’s just basic common sense.

[@parcanshy73]

He said in part 2 of his 06 video that his videos are not retrospectives and are entirely just reviews of these games AS games by themselfs. In that sense, it shouldn't matter whether or not the game came out before, during or after something else.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@shinkai9kami162facts

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​@@parcanshy73yep!

[@StardustOwO]

Ever since I’ve seen overclocked I realized that forces could have been great. Just had a ton of oversights. 1:55 if they give us a low budget game to play for the next so and so years… yeah that’s not gonna be good.

[@theking8347]

The environments are too bland for a world conquered by Eggman. There should be neon Eggman-land esque environments everywhere, with Eggman statues everywhere, his logo, everywhere, screens with his face on them everywhere. Have him make announcements like in Colors. Color's environments and Eggman's PA announcements really made you feel like you were in an amusement park built by Eggman. Feels like fan backlash against Colors and Lost World made them afraid to have as much fun with Forces's premise as they could have. Eggman should have been hamming it up, basking in his victory more.

[@zgiffish]

your time trials make this game look sooo good

[@TevyaSmolka]

I thought this game was bad and so disappointing in my opinion.

[@luke6784]

Sonic Forces is boring. And that's one of the worst things for a piece of entertainment to be.

[@mrbanks456]

I think all the hate this game got was from Gen Z. We grew up on Unleashed and Generations and wanted a return to form. The story also looked like it was going to be darker. But it was all just marketing... I was still a kid in 2017. I didn't question the low price or the trailers. I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. Ever since Forces, I have become well-read in Sonic staff. I know exactly who made my favorite Sonic games, who is making them now, and why Sonic is the way it is today.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

Interested. Well, it's still overhated. I love forces

[@mrbanks456]

@@Hyp3rSonic Well, good for you. There's some fun to be had with this game. But I can't look past all the bullshit to do that.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

​​@@mrbanks456i never said to not call that out. But for me, i barely looked at the advertisement/marketing back then. Also, i would've liked to actually play the game to form my opinion, which did eventually happen. But for me, i had a lot of fun in Forces, especially since most of the levels where very short, which is to my liking.

[@snakey888]

Is Forces really worse than the likes of Unleashed though? At least Forces is Sonic gameplay through and through, whereas at least half of Unleashed is so far removed from Sonic that it may as well be its own game. Not to mention the mandatory medal collecting, inconsistent and generally lower framerate are all aspects that Forces does not suffer from.

[@mrbanks456]

@@snakey888 As someone who likes the warehog and appreciates the details of the world and all the little sides stories with all the NPCs, yes, Forces is worse. And if we consider every other beloved Sonic game, non-sonic gameplay is just par for the course.

[@eishikibahamut]

I think when people say wasted potential they're talking about the eggman taking over the world bit. personally I never thought it looked good and never bothered playing it. I was extremely content with having mania, but maybe for some going from the high of the mania to forces it felt like going back to the sonic dark age, so maybe that could be another reason people complained about it so much. I was kinda too busy modding mania and communicating with that circle to really get annoyed by or notice the complaints of forces at the time though.

[@LukeStation]

I'd say forces represented everything people dislikes about boost games, like how 06 represented everything people disliked about the adventure formula

[@gb_oreo]

from the gameplay of this video, it feels like if you mash together some levels then it turns quite fun. kinda reminds me of the colors level distribution but in a really bad way

[@stardust-reverie]

this is a really compassionate perspective on forces and it changed how i view it, thanks for this re the thing about preferring bad things rather than middling things-for me, it’s not that i like to laugh at bad things, but rather it’s that i want things that are ambitious, and give their all to TRY to do something interesting, even if the end product ends up being incredibly flawed. i would rather have something with interesting ideas at its core that are worth talking and thinking about for extended periods of time, than something that’s just overall kind of nothing, like forces. this is why, as an example, 06 has taken up so much space in my brain-there are SO MANY THINGS i find fascinating about that game and seeing stuff like project 06 makes me feel so vindicated for my utter love for it. and it’s also why i find frontiers so refreshing-it feels like FINALLY they’re actually putting a foot forward and committing to SOMETHING, and it’s WORKING. it may not be my ideal for a sonic game, it may be flawed, but what sonic game isn’t flawed? the sonic adventure games are wonderful but they aren’t without their fair share of problems (someone please tell yuji naka that game controllers have more than one button). sonic unleashed, for all the good that game does, has the werehog. sonic and the black knight has the divisive motion controls, which is INTERESTING. that’s an interesting thing they did! i would take a million flawed but interesting things that take risks over something inoffensive but just kind of bland. and hey, sometimes the risk is worth it.

[@Hyp3rSonic]

That's where I disagree. I always found 06 worse than Forces, EVEN if I genuinely enjoyed playing both games. However, I respect your opinion, even if I disagree

[@Kelps.mp4]

Personally? I don't think people should judge games by how ambitious they are or shit like that, because video games are inherently made to be entertaining, so it does not matter whether a game is ambitious if it doesn't realize its potential. Though, in Sonic stories, I always want ambition and passion from the writers, because, y'know, it's a story.

[@xamp_exclammark]

@@Hyp3rSonic I love both 06 and Forces and i consider 06 worse lol.

[@BoxoSpoons]

Fans consider it one of the worst Sonic games in spirit because it was pretty much the embodiment of how much was wrong with the behind the scenes situation. It had pretty much no ambition to it, and just tried to be a quick and safe game, but still failed at even trying to play it as safe as possible. It was Sonic Team aiming for the floor and missing.

[@scrubbadubbins4895]

I really love forces. Playing this game on switch is what got me back into playing new sonic games. The music, ascetic and shadow mode felt like a step in the right direction, and this game is where I truly fell in love with playing these games with the Japanese voice cast. Very interested in watching this video and hearing your take on a game I feel is underappreciated

[@DonutSwordsman]

Lol there are so many good games, even on switch, and this one being the one that did that for you says a lot...

[@Mister_Jay_Tee]

​@@DonutSwordsmanAre you gonna keep yapping and bothering people or are you gonna be a good boy and sit there and eat your food?

[@Hyp3rSonic]

Facts​@@Mister_Jay_Tee

[@Hyp3rSonic]

I also love Forces!

[@goode_bag]

Replaying levels I get better at definitely is a fun thing I like to do in sonic games, but unfortunately that doesn’t make every game fun for me. I definitely agree that hate went overboard, but I also think people who disliked it, especially Sonic content creators, felt the need to make it clear that this is not what we wanted when hearing sega reps and some reviewers talk about it like it was exactly what we wanted

[@heroicgangster9981]

I do hate on Forces even tho it’s an alright game. I just think it was very insulting how the game promised big stuff but the game felt like it was openly burdened by the current state of the sonic franchise at the time. Being sauceless honestly is a bigger sin to people than flawed or even buggy gameplay. Just look at how many people trash on Insomniac for their lack of writing for Venom than the amount of people talking about the product of the game. Sonic Rivals, the storybook games, 3D Blast, and even the jank polish of Sonic Superstars are more appealing and give more than Sonic Forces because the game gives the sauce people want from a Sonic game. Why play Forces if you can play any other game, heck other Sonic games? Even the 8-bit games for the nostalgic warranty.

[@krispr1me]

This is my first Sonic game after taking a hiatus for a while from the series since Generations (which I never got got finish) and I thought it was fun. Not mind blowing but it was engaging enough as a decent break after work. Hate is totally unwarranted here.

[@caninelotus]

I think one of the biggest problems with Sonic Forces is that it came out after Sonic Mania, apart from the disappointment of the fans

[@thefizzwizz1662]

"Sonic Generations didn't have authentic classic physics but no body complained back then" Uh Yea they did. A lot actually. To this day people still site the Classic stages as the worst part of Generations. Joking aside, great video. It's nice seeing someone not just bash this game for stupid reasons and actually talk about what it does and does not achieve.

[@AdamWright-t7w]

Based

[@yousefslimani99]

Yaaaay he finally did it!!! We can’t wait for frontiers

[@joeyisabsb1]

Im playing sonic for the first time, as a person who has never played sonic games. I played and beat Sonic 1 and started Sonic 2. I also started Forces and so far, I like it! I guess im confused on the hate and the examples people are giving in the comments are honestly not saying much.