Sonic’s latest and most mediocre mainline title leaves nothing but a desire for improvement. His newest and most yawn-inducing outing on consoles has left fans stunned and worried once again about the future of our blue blur in 3D. With a story so underdeveloped, mechanics so surface-level, and level design so amateurish you’d swear it was some newbie’s first Sonic game… oh wait, it was! That was the huge and immeasurable disappointment that was Sonic Forces.

Before we chew and inevitably spit out the product itself, let’s talk about its marketing. Dear Lord, the marketing. It’s not that the marketing was bad. No, the marketing was actually exceptional in its execution, while also being one of the most deceptive marketing campaigns I’ve lived to see, barring on Bully Hunter-levels of falsities.

First of all, they claimed it was the same team that made Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, and while that is technically true, it is not the same staff of Sonic Team that made those games. In fact, the only developer that worked on the game’s level design that was from a previous Sonic Team staff was one who worked on Sonic Lost World, a Super Mario Galaxy clone that borrows elements from everywhere but Sonic for its level design, from Donkey Kong Country to various Mario titles (though still primarily Super Mario Galaxy).

Sonic Lost World was gimmicky and had little identity outside its underutilized parkour system, so whoever assigned this guy to make the levels for a Sonic Boost series title, a game with potential, promise, and good will behind it based on the Boost gameplay alone, deserves to get thrown out of SEGA and work at a fast food restaurant alongside the guy who thought inserting his fishing peripheral in Sonic Adventure and the guy who thought Sonic being a Twilight-themed beat-’em-up was a good idea. He was given a position of power and had control over how Sonic would traverse the world. He had three solid Boost titles as reference too, so the base was there! He had the tools and power in his hands, so what do we get? Two good levels, with the rest being a blurry mediocre mess.

We weren’t advertised this, of course. Who would buy a game if they knew the Lost World level designer was the lead of the team, with the other two having never worked on a Sonic game before? Sonic fans would, but that’s only because Sonic fans aren’t normal human beings. I should know, because I am one. Barring that, no one would buy the game unless they had some extreme faith in the product, which some might considering the Boost games, with the exception of Unleashed, are pretty solid.

The other main point advertising showed us was that this story was going to be darker than recent entries in the series, and the developers did not deliver this in practice very well. Granted, the story does have an interesting twist of Eggman starting out on top and everyone banding together to take back the world in Sonic’s absence, as he’s been captured and allegedly tortured for six months. The premise is promising, but the execution is rushed, holds no weight, and wastes the near-infinite potential of the idea. This is a contention many have cited, so I won’t bother going to deep into story details. Just know that, as many have pointed out, it’s a huge disappointment.

The gameplay is split into 3 styles. Two are decent, one is unneeded filler. The kind of filler that only Colors and Generations avoided in terms of Sonic’s 3D titles. The first gameplay style is Sonic himself. He has the signature Boost formula we’re all used to at this point. However, the new physics affect Sonic in many ways. He feels stiff, and not lose and free like previous entries. His double jump has been neutered, making it feel useless when it comes to correcting movement. His last quirk is that he has no drift, and let me tell you that in some snags that’s a detriment the level designs did not account for.

The second style is the Avatar. The Avatar’s only draw is customization of clothing, and the various routes you can take with Wispons, their signature weapons. There are several Wispon types, but Lightning is the only one to truly differentiate itself, as it allows you to fly through the skies and skip the mediocre level design on Ring trails. The Avatar also has a grappling hook that in many cases is automated.

I should mention the hybrid that is Tag Team, where you play as Sonic and the Avatar simultaneously. It’s a lot less interesting than it seems, like most of Sonic Forces. It’s essentially Sonic with a Wispon, or the Avatar with a Boost. The levels play practically identically to any Sonic or Avatar stage, so just forget I mentioned it. It’s not Sonic Heroes deep or anything, and Sonic Heroes isn’t even that deep to begin with.

Then there’s Classic Sonic… He’s terrible. Inferior to Generations, inferior to the classics, inferior to Sonic Mania, in level design, music, and in any way and form possibly conceivable. Floaty, heavy, clunky, momentumless, and with absolutely horrid level design. One of the levels even features an auto-scrolling section, probably put in by the one guy who liked Bridge Zone in Sonic Game Gear, a.k.a. that one guy in my high school class that claimed SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (2006) was the best game in the franchise. Much appreciated, buddy!

The level design for all three is generally flat, predictable, and boring, with two exceptions that I won’t describe here, because if I do, it’ll sound better than the stages themselves, and I don’t want to be the one responsible for your inevitable disappointment in them, because you will be disappointed. If you aren’t disappointed, you may be an optimist, but you are no realist.

Giving a little, miniscule, tiny bit of credit to the game, its writing is a bit flat, but not nearly as unbearable as the Sonic Adventure games. The cutscene choreography, sound mixing, and music during cutscenes is executed well, and the delivery of all lines by actors is the same cheesy yet endearing kind of delivery you’d expect from these characters, even if they don’t exactly take things seriously all the time, despite their circumstances being dire throughout the whole game. That’s not much of a complaint though, as I don’t go to Sonic for overly depressing tones.

It’s so frustrating, because I know what SEGA has done to bring Sonic back to the lime-light with Generations and Mania. However, if they do what they did with Forces to fans again, my faith in 3D Sonic will be at an all time low, and I do not want that to happen. At the very least, Sonic can have a victory with Sonic Mania, and I’ll gladly play Whitehead’s passion project over Iizuka’s vain attempts at keeping fans happy any time.

Fun is only as infinite as the effort put in to make it fun.