#and im kinda left like. i want the villain fans AND positivity abt the show and idk that its possible to have a community like that

[thrandilf]

I actually kind of want to have a tdp fan discord and maybe even have a viren and or aaravos or viravos focus but I have a feeling that this is asking for a bunch of ppl together to get together who would all kill each other if left without moderators

[superemeralds]

sonic forces review

EDIT: added day after thoughts under read more

Hey nyall! Time to review forces!

First, a broad, spoiler free, review. Under the cut will be a more in depth review containing spoilers for both, the main game AND episode shadow.

Please note that this is from the perspective of someone with adhd. I can’t tell how some of the things that peeved me would affect neurotypicals.

General info:

There is an easy and a hard mode. (hard mode is just normal mode “for ppl who played sonic before”) It took me 7 hours and 44 minutes to complete the entire game including episode shadow. Granted, I took quite a few breaks for breathers and shitpostingly liveblogging me playing the game on a discord server + I think I’m just bad at the game.

There are over 30 levels to play, of which a few did repeat and you just play with a different character, but it was still fun!

The hub map got increasingly confusing and hard to navigate and i really hate it now that i completed it because there’s too much happening at once on the screen.

Game play:

There was a Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic and Custom Character type game play.

I personally do not enjoy Classic Sonic game play but it was very well playable once I remembered I could use the arrow key pad instead of the left joystick.

Modern Sonic was often too fast in platforming sections and the absence of drift made sharp curves in 3D areas hard to handle, mainly when you activated boost (as the game intends you to). But it was very fun and refreshing to be able to boost again.

The Custom Character could use different wispons to do progress in the game. This is probably what has the most replay factor, as you can go back to levels using different wispons to clear new paths that you were previously unable to go through. The wispon use can be kinda sloppy at times, but once you get used to it it can be very fun.

The tag team game play was sloppy. It was never clear which character you are playing as right now (until later I realized you are playing both at the very same time ? I think? i am still confused).

Visuals:

The lighting in the cutscenes and levels often comes short and can even ruin the atmosphere at times. A lack of detail in some scenes undermines this. 

The characters are not as expressive as they could be, but there are some iconic expressions to spot throughout the game.

Sometimes camera angles shift weirdly or zoom out too much (some times the character even blends in with the stage and you don’t see it at all anymore when you are in movement) and you lose track of your character and most probably fall off the stage or get hurt. Sometimes there is also a little too much going on in the background.

On the contrary, the game had also tried to pull quite a few visually stunning shots and lighting in both levels and cutscenes.

It is overall still better than previous games because it has more heart and life in it and I hold it dear.

Overall feelings about the game:

The game had mostly been very fun! There was a lot of variety between stages and the wispons gave the gameplay a very fresh kick.

Some stages were frustrating because the character was too fast/very hardly visible for the platforming and I ended up dying a lot in the same spot. 

Not to say too much about the story, but Classic Sonic was pure fanservice and was not important to the plot whatsoever and the game would’ve done very well without him.

Character development was pretty absent.

The pacing of the game in general was very sloppy and almost even uncomfortably fast (rushed) and bland.

Most of the levels were very short to a point where you’d expect there to be multiple acts of it because you refuse to accept that this was already the end of it.

The story had some strong points, though, and the music was absolutely phenomenal, like always, BUT the music was not as recognizable as it was in previous games. I played the final boss only a very few hours ago and i cannot remember the tune to it at all.

The game had a lot of potential but it was executed rather sloppily than exceptionally.

All in all this game gets a 7/10 for effort from me.

because im very generous and i still had fun and was hyped and enjoyed it despite all the annoying parts. I mean i am also 06fucker69

Longer and more in depth review including spoilers under the cut

!!!! WARNING SPOILERS START HERE !!!!

I will try to stay in chronological order, but that is the first thing that is kinda peeving me in this game. 

(warning i quickly grew tired and couldn't write anymore but i forced myself to finish)

The time skips and flashbacks are inconsistent and have a harsh transition. For example the 6 months between Sonic’s defeat and the recruitment of the Rookie is just white text on a black screen that isn’t even narrated. Sometimes the time between perspectives is very disorted and you forget about Classic and Tails while you are busy with another mission that is forced upon you thanks to the linear 1 perspective story.

I would’ve had a 3 perspective story, with 3 story modes. Each story mode would explore the same story from the different perspectives like in SADX, SA2, heroes and Sonic the hedgehog 2006. (mostly 06 though)

The stages were perfectly arranged and build to be incorporated into a 3 perspective story. Classic might have had more time for character development and relevance. Also more, mostly consistent, time with him would make us more attached and feel actual emotions about his parting in the very end.

The idea of having Mania connect with forces like that and have a “reason” for Classic to appear is good, but Classic just arrives and is there. For not reason at all besides the sake of being there in order to please 2d/classic enthusiast fans. Great concept in theory, sloppily executed though.

Modern Sonic

The game play was very sloppy as Sonic just could fall off the stage and you just had a very huge lack of control of his speed. Mostly when you were in boost in a place that intended you to boost. The absence of drift was very unnerving.

The thing about Sonic being imprisonment was just. so..... unrealistically done. Sonic just came out of the cage and he’s been doing just fine. But he’s gotta be down, because couldn’t run. He absolutely hates being stuck in a place and it’s been SIX FUCKING MONTHS. The bars are also so far apart he can just slip out. Also Sonic can easily break out of prison.

This was not the first time he was imprisoned. In SA2 he had a far greater emotional response, and he broke out the moment he knew what he had to do to make things right. (He volunteered to be imprisoned in SA2, in forces he was forced in prison.)

This is not just out of character for him, but also very lazy writing. The time skip between was badly done, in a black screen with text. No context as to why Silver is suddenly here (if you didn’t read the comic you have no idea whats going on) or how the resistance formed.

Everyone thinks Sonic died, Knuckles is very upset and admits he cant get used to him being gone; and suddenly he gets the news that Sonic is fine and it doesn't trigger any emotional response in him. Or anyone really much besides Amy; who had refused to believe he died in the first place.

He just immediately goes on a mission and fights Infinite.

Tag Team

It was a very good idea to incorporate this mechanic and was mainly well done and fun; the double and triple boost was a nice lil kick off to regular gameplay.

As mentioned was it never clear who you are playing right now and it didn’t warn you about swiches. It could’ve been done better with the heroes mechanics of swicharound. There were more than enough characters to have multiple teams that could be playable.

Avatar

The custimization options aren’t spectacular, but that was not to be expected. I was positively surprised to have the option to chose between 3 voices. 

Villains

Chaos is. Just there. He wasn't even a boss. He was just there for the shock value/fan service.

The Metal Sonic fight was okay.

Zavok was annoying but okay and reasonable.

Shadow wasn’t even a bossfight he was also just shock-factor. He joined the team but was of very little value. (Except for DLC, will talk abt later.)

Infinite has 4 boss fights. And in the end he just vanishes. He’s basically still existent? I think? what happened? Are we just going to accept this?

The final boss was lame and not memorable at all. At least nega wisp phase 2 was iconic.

Infinite

Infinite is a very interesting character with much potential, which they sadly didn't really use much at all except for him being extra. He didn't show off much of his personality and we couldn't learn to appreciate/hate him. 

The game doesn't mention much about his origin, so you will have to read the online comic in the social medias to understand. This might be good marketing to get consumers to consume media on different platforms, but it does not make much sense for newcomers who know nothing about Sonic and don’t follow the social medias to begin with.

Someone who just picked up the game and it’s their first Sonic game.... They won't understand shit.

I want to see more of him. He got so much potential to grow and ultimately redeem himself. Maybe in a future game? Or in the comics at least.

Episode Shadow

The 3 levels were well. One time it was a sonic level but with shadow and some lil things changed. The other was a custom character level but with shadow. The other was just generic 2d platforming with cubes. None of these were long or new. It was fun, sure, but it wasn't exciting.

I was kinda peeved that even though infinite was revealed, we still didnt get to see his face.

Visuals

Lighting harsh, sometimes interesting, but not completely fleshed out/good/atmospheric. 

There are scenes/levels that have stunning visuals (the sonic level in space and the scene with the sun.) even when its not perfect.

Just. The characters sometimes float above the ground and the lighting is very white and harsh and not atmospheric. (The colors are meessed up and too bright. The characters look like they have a completely different light source from the environment)

EDIT: A DAY AFTER ADDITIONS

okay so a day after, replaying some stages, I still think the game is very fun.

There are quite a few things that are peeving me still. I just remembered the whole null space thing, which is totally wasted potential. You could’ve had a few levels in that space with fucky gravity and weird cube shit going, but you just had to double boost out and that was it.

Many tricks the villain packs out are treated as something they can oercome easily and they just. Win “because they always do”.

I want to see the heroes doubt themselves and have character development. The only character that does have character development at all is the custom character. Infinite arguably does undergo some development too; in episode shadow.

There is a lot of potentials for DLCs and I hope they release them and have more characters playable.

[uniformbravo]

ok here are some of my Actual s2 thoughts (voltron spoilers below)

so back when i first watched s1 i guess i wasn’t totally 100% into it?? i dont remember if i ever really talked abt it on here but i remember being a little confused and trying to figure out why it was so popular bc i honestly didn’t think it was that great but idk i must’ve warmed up to it at some point between then and now bc i was way more into it this time around aaaaa

i rly did like s2 better than s1 tho??? idk maybe it’s just bc it’s new so it’s the hype of new content & everything but dang overall i do feel like i enjoyed it more

i rly like the art style and especially the animation style like this is probably just me coming to this show straight from lolirock but like... while lolirock has a really appealing art style im honestly not a fan of the type of animation they use so it felt really nice to come back to like. hand-drawn stuff idk just! voltron is a v visually appealing show in all aspects god bless

everyone is still super trans wow i can’t believe every character is trans

tbh i love shiro? but it’s weird bc i actually think he’s rly boring when it comes to his “leadership” kind of characteristics but like also he suffers a lot and gets a lot of the plot-heavy development and normally i might be annoyed by that but im just...... so weak

also speakin of shiro there was a lot of shiro/keith this season and like..... ok im gonna be honest i dont rly ship them or anything like at all im not too keen on the two of them that way but this person i follow has this au where they’re brothers and imagining them that way made me enjoy their scenes like 100% more so like Good Shit (but tbh keith saying “you’re like a brother to me” or was it maybe “father” i can’t remember but either way that line killed me pls i want them to have a rly strong platonic bond i want shiro to feel rly protective of keith and i want keith to feel safer around shiro aaaaa i love it so much)

pidge starting to adopt altean terms and phrases fucking killed me dude like with the time vocabulary n shit, even the others started picking it up a little bit it’s So Fucking Good im so happy aaaaaAA

i still love keith and lance i hope they never calm down w/ each other and keep fighting forever bye (like rewatching s1 when lance is like “yOU AGAIN” and keith is like “who are u” hfhdgd gOD that was so GOOD)

a lot of the character development was rly good but tbh im a little disappointed by the lack thereof when it came to lance and hunk like ?? at this point they’re still treated like the Joke Characters for the most part, i mean lance did have his one little moment of glory in that one episode but i would really love to see like. an actual full character arc w/ him. and i know hunk did have some stuff in s1 w/ like the balmerans & shae but this season it felt like he was just kinda pushed aside and i mean the same could be said of pidge, who did have a lot of story in s1 but barely anything in s2, so maybe i’m just being a little impatient lol i mean. if u take a step back and lay it all out, s1 focused on shiro, pidge, allura, and a little bit of hunk, and then s2 focused on shiro and keith, so maybe s3 (idk if it’s even confirmed yet but like hypothetically) will focus on lance and hunk more? and probably shiro again tbh  i mean it doesn’t really feel like anything’s been set up to go into a lance or hunk arc, but at the same time there wasn’t really any setup for keith’s whole s2 thing in s1 either, so there’s still the possibility that it could all happen in s3 but like. with the way s2 went and the unanswered questions it left about keith i can see s3 being very keith-centric, not to mention all the reminders we got about pidge’s whole family issue this season, so s3 will probably focus on that a lot too idk i mean at the end of the day they are pretty short seasons, it makes sense that they can only focus on a select few characters at a time, so i feel like at this point it makes sense to just sit back and wait to see what happens, & then if hunk and lance are still kind of shoved aside w/ nary even a mere setup then wtf actually

not to keep running w/ the negativity & criticisms but honestly what i really love in a show is complex characters written realistically and w/ voltron i feel like it /almost/ delivers but not really? like, not to bring up lolirock again but that show has fairly one-dimensional characters who are written relying more on their character type than anything with a ton of depth; the protagonists are Good and the antagonists are Evil; auriana is the goofball, talia is the responsible one, iris is the main character or the “pure good” one, mephisto is the clumsy villain, praxina is the irritable villain- like it’s all just very straightforward (most of the time). i feel like voltron is a little more complex with its characters than lolirock, but in the end it still kind of sticks to the same method of characterization; it’s definitely not as cookie-cutter, but each character does have one or two characteristics that blatantly stick out and make them.... i dont know, really predictable? like you Know that every time a girl shows up lance is gonna hit on her, and every time there’s some cool technology pidge is gonna fawn over it and every time there’s food hunk is gonna say some shit about being hungry, and keith and lance argue a lot and shiro gets the team’s shit together because he’s the Leader and it’s just like basically, with voltron it feels very “telling” rather than “showing” with most things, and besides manifesting in the story it shows in the way the characters are written, too. in most situations, the characters’ reactions are written based more on those few main characteristics they’ve been given than more realistic reactions to their current situation, and maybe that’s a little confusing but i’ll try to clarify actually im sorry but i just completely lost my train of thought and i can’t get it back, it’s currently coming up on 1am and im incredibly tired right now so i’m gonna have to cut this short but like. basically, the characters in voltron kind of have their main characteristics and it’s fine to have things like that bc it helps define characters but the way the writers use them feels a lot like those hogwarts house sorting quizzes that are like “what’s your favorite animal? a) lion b) snake c) raven d) badger” like it tends to be relatively straightforward and predictable in a bad way, and a lot of that execution has to do with the storytelling style the show has overall

ok ANYWAY let’s say something more positive now: the soundtrack to this show is absolutely phenomenal tbh i remember thinking this last time too, just the general sound it has, it feels like an homage to the older series and acts as a subtle way to bring that kind of aesthetic into it and i rly like it (i mean i’ve never seen the old show so idk what kind of aesthetic it has but u know what i mean. the kind of “old video tape sound” kind of thing. u know the game oxenfree, which has a similar music aesthetic. god idk how to explain this i hope u know what i’m trying to say. i rly like voltron’s soundtrack)

like i didnt mean to go on this big rant all “here’s everything i didn’t like abt voltron what a Bad Show” bc i actually really like it a lot!! the fact that im picking it apart like this is actually a good sign that i like it bc if i dont care abt something i won’t put in the effort, u know? if i don’t like it then i won’t be all “here’s what i hope to see from this show in the future” right

anyway it’s fuckin 1am bye, i love voltron goodnight