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  4. Sonic Forces

"What were they thinking?!?": Players react (poorly) to the strange new Sonic Forces demo

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By Connor Sheridan published 26 October 2017

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If you want to try out Sonic Forces a few weeks early, a demo for the game is available now on the Japanese Nintendo Switch eShop and Japanese PlayStation Store. You can make a Japanese account if you want to try it out - and here’s how on Switch - though, um, you may not want to go through the effort in this specific case. I'm not just being a 3D Sonic naysayer here, there's one very strange aspect of the demo that's souring just about everybody who plays it: you can only play for a minute at a time.

The demo includes three stages: one where you try out modern Sonic (read: long-legged and green-eyed), one as classic Sonic (chubby and impatient), and one as the customizable "avatar" character (original, do not steal). They appear to be full stages from the game, but you can only play each one for a minute before the screen fades to black and a trailer starts playing. This has provoked significant consternation among players.

Sonic Forces demo is timed pic.twitter.com/8ezN8ppqdmOctober 25, 2017

I think what hurts the Sonic Forces demo the MOST is the goddamn time limit. What were they thinking?!?October 25, 2017

The Sonic Forces demo is a waste of time and bandwidth. A minute per session? What were they thinking?October 25, 2017

If the 2D splendor of Sonic Mania has you hopeful for an equally good 3D Sonic game, you may want to start tempering your expectations now. Most of the reactions I saw didn't seem like they would have improved much given extra time to play. 

Article continues below
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So there's a Sonic Forces demo on the Japanese Switch eShop and uh...Hoo boy it's not good.October 25, 2017

So, I tried that Sonic Forces demo, and, uh...You SURE you guys wouldn't rather just port Generations to modern hardware?October 25, 2017

After playing the Sonic Forces demo, the game looks really ugly on the Switch. The 30fps hurt it so much as well..October 25, 2017

Just tried the Sonic Forces demo and...yikes. My expectations were pretty low to begin with but I think they’ve just dropped off the planet.October 25, 2017

But! Not everybody's having a rotten time with the Sonic Forces demo. Maybe it'll work for you, too?

Positive time.- This Sonic Forces demo performs so much better than the E3 one for Switch.- Getting good at Modern is fun.- Good music.October 25, 2017

I tried the Sonic Forces demo. It’s pretty cool but I wish it didn’t had a time limit.October 26, 2017

After seeing demo gameplay for #SONICFORCES my only complaint so far is the in game dialogue for modern sonicOctober 26, 2017

Broke: the sonic forces demo is bad because it ends after one minuteWoke: sega has blessed up with hardcore speedrun trainingOctober 25, 2017

We'll have to reserve full judgement until we can play more than a minute of the game, of course. Until then, why not revisit some of the classics with our list of the best Sonic games of all time?

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Connor Sheridan
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Former GamesRadar+ News Writer

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar+.

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