How does Sonic Forces’ main theme measure up to past games?

Bringing back the glam

The main theme for Sonic Forces has been revealed, and it shows a surprising amount of restraint. It hearkens back to a simpler time when Sonic had rock-oriented songs that kids listened to with their anti-skip protection CD players (oddly specific, right?). While this isn’t the final cut of the Forces theme, the lack of vocals will probably excite more than a few of you out there.

Let’s take a look at some past themes in the series, and feel free to share your own favorites!

Who can forget spending hours at a time getting swept away by the original Sonic Adventure? It had its flaws, but this is a game that got a lot of people I know into 3D platformers, if Super Mario 64 didn’t do the trick already. Until that point I was pretty lonely in my love them.

Then you have the cheesy “Live and Learn” from Sonic Adventure 2, which is pretty much building on the success of the first, with some James Hetfield/Axel Rose-ass vocals. The absurdity of adding music like this has both detracted from and added to modern Sonic‘s allure, but I err on the side of the latter group — as long as the rest of it is actually good!

Can anyone else predict why Sonic 2006 failed to impress? Was it the human/hedgehog relations? Surely not the fantasy/rap tune “His World,” right?

Of course, it’s not all rock-oriented. Here we have the very ska/pop punk “Reach for the Stars” from Sonic Colors, following up the similarly sounding Sonic Unleashed. It’s not my favorite, I’ll say that much!

But even if the pop punk era of Sonic is not for me, I’ll still take it over the “let’s emulate Mario Galaxy” soundtrack of Sonic Lost World.