Sonic Forces story crtique/discussion *spoilers, you have been warned*

[I Hate Snatch Steal]

I was thinking about how for some Sonic the Hedgehog media the memories of it really stick with me. For example, Sonic Colors and Sonic Adventure 2. However, some don't. I happened to wonder, "Why doesn't Sonic Forces stick with me?" I had this on my mind for a while and decided to post about it to see what people thought about my thoughts. I came up with the following:

 

1. When Sonic first fights Infinite, Infinite is literally faster then he is. When Sonic fights him out side of a cut scene later in the game, Infinite is no longer faster despite the fact that of anything Sonic should be slower and weaker after his last defeat and subsequent imprisonment. No explanation is given for Infinite's speed drop. Sonic being defeated in the opening would have made more sense if Infinite beat him some other way, such as overwhelming him with Phantom Ruby constructs [The other villains during that fight are such constructs], or trapping him in a phantom ruby illusion, or something.

 

2. Once Sonic goes down, the text on the screen for the 6 month "intermission" makes it seem like the rest of the cast just gave up. If the text said that Infinite was too powerful for them as well I would have given this a pass. This may be more of a personal sore spot for me since my first Sonic media was Sonic X where the rest of the cast sans Shadow were basically never allowed to do anything useful.

 

3. This one isn't as important but Tails, my favorite character, is portrayed to be about as useful as his Sonic X portrayal, arguably even less so.Tails doesn't have to be playable or fight well to be portrayed positively, though those 2 traits are welcomed. Sonic Colors does a good job with him despite not having those two traits.

 

Note that I don't begrudge the avatar feature. Some people undoubtedly do but as a Sonic OC designer via game modding I personally don't.

 

Also, I don't mind that Infinite has no backstory in the main game (I haven't bothered with the DLC that does have his story). Infinite's powers are interesting enough to make up for that.