Sonic Forces: Classic Sonic Gameplay Revealed

Gamers got their first look at the second gameplay style featured in the upcoming Sonic Forces during Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct. The very brief clip of Classic Sonic gameplay showed the blue blur running through a Green Hill-type area, just as he had in Sonic Generations, before teasing a mysterious new character.

There’s not a whole lot more to dissect here, but as a passionate Sonic fan, this 40 second Classic Sonic gameplay video didn’t really do it for me. The scenery behind Classic Sonic looked extremely bland… and just look at that log bridge falling apart! Of course, this is probably just an early build of the game. It’s due out this holiday season, so there’s a lot of time for Sonic Team to polish things up. 

As a fan of Generations, I welcome the return of Classic Sonic, but I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed that we’re not getting a full on Modern Sonic adventure. The daytime stages in Unleashed were really fun, and the 3D Sonic stages in Generations were honestly more exhilarating than their 2D counterparts in my opinion. To me, Classic Sonic feels like a crutch here. I hope that he’s at least written into the story well.

My biggest concern is this mysterious third characters joining the mix. Two Sonics is jenky enough, but that shadowy third character has me extremely nervous about Forces. Sonic Team has a terrible history of adding terrible characters with terrible gameplay (see Big the Cat, Silver the Hedgehog, Post Heroes Shadow) that hold back what could be great Sonic games. Here’s hoping this character breaks that trend. 

Regardless, 2017 will be a huge year for Sonic. Sonic Mania, a throwback to Sonic’s 16 bit glory days, will arrive some time this summer. Sonic Forces, meanwhile, comes to the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PS4 and PC this holiday season.