I don't think sonic should just have one visual style, I think that's just narrow minded. I enjoy how experimental the series is with it's environmental visuals personally, from the 80's style drug trips of sonic CD, to even the realistic environments of 06(except the humans), to even the pixar style in unleashed, i love all of those. Sonic hasn't had one concrete visual style in 30 years, and in my opinion that's a good thing. As long as it's not mind numbingly generic, I dont think frontiers having a new look is inherently a bad thing like some of you guys are saying. We haven't seen enough to really criticize the visual style.
Honestly, the really detailed environments of Frontiers reminds me of Sonic OVA for some reason. Spoiler: large images I know Sachiko Kawamura is lead producer but I wonder if she's also Art director again.
Or Sonic Adventure 1,if we being real, nothing about Station Square screamed "Sonic" at the time, it was just like any city at it's time of release, people just learnt to accept it we didn't even see one proper gameplay of Frontiers, so we don't know if he can grind on water or not and... what part of this city takes advantage of sonic movement? absolutely nothing. let's just wait and see for proper gameplay of frontiers and how it should function, but at the very least you can spot towers with distinct surface that should make sonic run on it
The hub version, yeah, but Radical Highway is also a part of Station Square and it absolutely has that vibrant, surreal vibe of earlier Sonic with its incoherent roller coaster highways and absurdly tall skyscrapers.
I have a feeling that we'll see more loops and platforms once we see more of the game. One of the earlier leaks that seemed pretty legit mentioned that there are boost-style levels separate from the main open world. Even if that's not true, we've only seen a few locations in the game world.
True. With the exception of a few non-Platformer spin-offs like All-Stars Racing, loops in the official 3d games have always been too automatized to amount to anything more than a gimmick. Them being missing from Frontiers wouldn't really hurt the gameplay that much. In fact, I'd argue that reducing the amount of automatized set pieces would be an improvement.
Yep. Loops in 2D were always both obstacle and spectacle. You have to prove you can beat them by going fast enough, and it's pleasant to see you doing it. The 3D movement allows you to skip them easily, so you don't have the obstacle. The 3D camera behind the character makes the view somewhat confusing and not so pleasant to see, so you don't have the spectacle. That's why the camera often shifts to 2D in these moments.
The Sonic roblox game is the best loops have ever felt in an official 3D title IMO (not counting racing spinoffs, which I haven’t played). In Speed Simulator the loops aren’t automated but they aren’t as hard to pull off as in many of the momentum based 3D fangames.
I'm pretty those are automated; the automatization just kicks in when you're about 90° into the loop, rather than 0°.
fwiw there aren't any loops in the natural environment itself, but there is one connected to that floating upside down pyramid thing
since we can't totally judge how far awaty that thing is, we cant be certain if that's a loop, some decoration, or even a dash ring.
wasn't the thing they showed us basically is the hub version of this game? and the game is supposed to have separated ...."arcady" levels that you have to access by collecting things in the open world? that's what i recall from leaks anyway and even then, those towers in the open world they showed is more accommodated to sonic movement than anything in the hub world for SA1
Interesting. Ngl I kinda think that’s a pretty good compromise that feels satisfying in 3D. You need speed to get the loop started but it’s not as DIY as the physics based fangames. This is just my opinion but... how would everyone feel if frontiers handled loops the same way?
Depends what frontiers is even trying to do. Are these islands just big hub worlds? Or are they the main game?
Personally I don't think Frontiers (or any 3D Sonic game for that matter) needs loops at all, controversial as such a statement may be. As has been said further up the thread, they're much more effective in 2D because you can only go through them, which requires you to have enough momentum to clear the other side, or over them, which requires the player be skilled enough to take whatever path is necessary to do that. In 3D, you can always just jump through the loop without actually interacting with it, if you're not already able to just navigate around it. And unless they're going to have the camera pull out every time you run through one, consistently timing a jump from a loop to increase speed via momentum would be impossible, assuming this game is even going to feature momentum based physics akin to the classic games. So yeah loops in 3D Sonic are invariably reduced to a neat set piece. If they want to continue doing that, I'll have no complaints, because they *are* a part of Sonic's visual identity, but they're functionally obsolete in even an extremely faithful realisation of the classic formula in 3D. Corkscrews, however, I could get behind, since that does offer a unique challenge in 3D, ironically inverting the relationship between 2D and 3D with regards to loops. If you've got enough momentum going into a corkscrew in the classics, you're just holding right to win, but the third dimension then brings the challenge of having to stay on. Furthermore, the cockscrew in 3D can fulfil a simliar function to the loop in 2D, in that you'd be able to leave the structure prematurely by running off the side on your way up, exploiting the gimmick to gain height and reach new areas. So yeah, I'd say loops aren't necessary here, but I'd certainly advocate for corkscrews in Frontiers.
They're "automated" in the sense that you don't have to precisely shoot for the loop to stay on it, which is what most people would probably prefer. Otherwise they generally function identically to how they did in the 2d games, you are either fast enough to clear it or you aren't. But you can just walk around it anyways, so you'd need an actual incentive to go through it. For Speed Simulator, that's usually a trail of experience.
I'd prefer the way they work in ASR and those fangames, full control all the way. Way more rewarding IMO. Sure, they may be a bit hard to master at first, but so are the loops in the 2d games. And they're not even that hard from my experience. True story, when my non-gamer sister tried Green Hill Paradise Act 2, she got through her first loop (without jumping through it) in only a few attempts. In Sonic GT and especially ASR they're even easier. Well, you could say basically the same about the loops in the 3d boost games. They automate your direction with splines but you still need enough speed to cross them. Of course, since you have an autorun button (the boost) you're always going fast enough by default.
The reason the loops don't work in the boost games is that the boost games are fundamentally not about skillfully maintaining your speed, it's about managing and mastering your speed. It's no longer the reward, but the experience. That is just plain contradictory to what the loops achieved in the 2d games, loops were a reward for managing to maintain your speed. But that simply isn't a thing in the boost games, the boost games just have them as a shallow spectacle. I don't see any reason why an adventure esque sonic that we're expecting in frontiers couldn't make the loops work, in fact I have no idea why the adventure games scripted their loops in the first place when it just wasn't necessary. I expect to see some loops here and there with rewards of some sort for successfully getting through them, but rare enough to maintain the spectacle.
To be honest I don't think loops reward skill in the classics. Going through the loop does not take much skill. You just hold right or use a spin dash. It's rare that you need to build speed to go through a loop. It's why I'm not bothered by loops being automated in the 3D games. They were never particularly challenging in the first place and were fundamentally about looking cool and making interesting stage designs. I think Sonic 1 used them most interestingly in making the player go off in interesting directions in stages like Star Light. But then I also think Sonic 1s design is very underappreciated. The problem with loops in the 3D games is that they are largely dull and formulaic. Just horizontally going through a loop because it's a Sonic game. Adventure 2 uses them well in Radical Highway and City Escape where you go through them and they propel you down in a visually interesting way. Building upon what Sonic 1 does. I think a lot of the discussion about the Classics rewarding skill with speed is overblown, but especially with loops.