Wispon

The Wispon (ウィスポン) is an object that appears in Sonic Forces. Contrary to its name, it is a series of different weapon gadgets made for weaponizing the Wisps' Color Powers. They were the primary weapons used by the Resistance's soldiers during the war to take back the planet.

In gameplay, the Wispons can be equipped to the Avatar to grant them unique abilities.

Concept and creation
As a part of the storyline for Sonic Forces, the Avatar was intended to be a regular citizen with no special abilities, like Sonic's speed. To compensate for that, Sonic Team created the Wispon for the Avatar. The Wispon was also given a multitude of applications in gameplay so the Avatar could have a moveset that offered a gameplay style different from Sonic's.

Appearance
The Wispon is a gadget-like weapon that comes in a number of distinct models, all of which are based on individual Wisp breeds. However, the generally take the shape of portable tools, like handguns, hammers and similar mechanical devices.

Features and abilities
The Wispons' signature function is their ability to harness Hyper-go-ons from Wisps and use them to channel the properties of the respective Wisps' Color Power without causing the user to undergo a transformation. Each Wispon model also possesses an offensive combat function that matches the respective Wisp used to power it, such as the Burst Wispon functioning as a flamethrower and the Drill Wispon manifesting a piercing drill.

Overview
The Wispons are used by the Avatar when playing through the stages. In gameplay, they have two functions:

Besides its primary functions, different Wispons may also come with different sets of skills. When a Wispon is wielded by the Avatar, they automatically gain its skills in gameplay as well.
 * Basic attack: When using its basic attack, the Wispon launches a long-ranged attack. The nature of the attack depends of the variety of the chosen Wispon, although they can all take out multiple foes at once. To use the basic attack in gameplay, the player must press //.
 * Special action: When using its special action, the Wispon triggers an ability reminiscent of a Wisp's Color Power. The nature of the action depends of the variety of the chosen Wispon; when using the Burst Wispon's special action for example, the player can perform midair jumps (like the Red Burst). However, a Wispon can only use its special action if the player obtains the Wisp matching their Wispon's variety (like a Red Wisp for the Burst Wispon), which will fill up the player's Wisp Gauge; obtaining any other Wisp yields no effect. Using a Wispon's special action drains the Wisp Gauge, and once it empties, the Wispon's special actions gets canceled out and become unusable. To use the special action in gameplay (when available), the player must press //.

The player starts out with a skill-less Burst Wispon at the beginning of the game, but by clearing Challenge Missions and unlocking gold Medals, one can unlock new Wispons. Each of the seven varieties of Wispon comes in nine different models, each one with its own unique set of skills, adding up to a total of sixty-three Wispons in the game.

Before a stage, the player can choose different Wispons to customize how the Avatar controls, thereby allowing access to different parts of the stages. The Wispon the Avatar possesses is displayed on the HUD in the lower left corner of the screen during stages.

Trivia

 * "Wispon" is a portmanteau of the words "Wisp" and "weapon".
 * Interestingly, the Wispons share a few similarities to the Dark Arms used by Eclipse the Darkling in the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic series:
 * They are both based off the Wisps (though the Dark Arms are actually a living sub-species of the Black Arms that were "harvested" from the Wisps).
 * Both weaponize the Color Powers of Wisps.
 * Both do not cause an actual transformation in the user (though the Dark Arms do cause partial physical transformations in Eclipse: for example, Cyzer turns his hands into cyan-hued gloves, while Cregal converts them into crimson-hued wings).