- Lets make sonic run in a straight line for 2 minute long levels and call it "3d".
- Then add baby sonic with mario-esque physics.
- Add shite story and even shiter writing to the mix.
- bland graphics and uninspired music.
Legit couldn't be further from sonic adventure if they tried.
Sonic Forces (or any of the boost trilogy) was never meant to be a 3D adventure platformer...
And the Sonic Boost trilogy (Colors, Unleashed & Origins) have an amazing base that translate Sonic into 3D (since the first emerald runs) and especially for the future...if you remove all the 2D/3D platforming that interrupt it.
And that's the problem, they are still making a huge incoherent compromise between those amazing boost phases, of which the point is the amazing levels, drifting, skipping lanes, dashing through and jumping levels but that should be further developed and extended, and those whatever 2D/3D platformer phase which work well for a 2D Sonic platformer but never translated well into 3D.
And the result is that for Sonic Forces they tried to make-up for that with shallow repeat boost levels that were badly design, and a useless mission and collectible system. Sonic Forces really is mediocre, but the reason they produced it in the first place and then re-release Colors is because the Boost formula is amazing.