by Amr (@siegarettes)

[TRANSCRIPT]

Sonic Forces feels incomplete. It’s straining against its budget, with signs that it may have gone a few changes of direction. Everything is highly polished, but it’s clear that plenty got cut on the way, leaving them to assemble what’s left into something resembling complete. It’s frustrating, seeing something with so many ideas, but with almost none of them explored.

At the same time Sonic Forces still manages to feel celebratory. It’s obviously in love with its own ridiculous fiction, going all in on its freedom fighter angle. Forces does its damnedest to make its case for Sonic as a narrative vehicle. It casts previous zones as actual places within Sonic’s world, justifying their return better than Generations or Mania did. It delivers reports on fighting elsewhere through radio chatter, hinting at a larger world than the one you can see. And its villain, Infinite, is pure malice, overblown, but convincing in his desire to out edge all of the cast.