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Sonic Frontiers Thread - PS4, PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by MykonosFan, May 27, 2021.

  1. SuperSnoopy

    SuperSnoopy

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    Slice of life visual novel, coming soon...?
    Yeah of course I'm not saying you guys HAVE to be hyped or that it even looks super polished, even I can see how rough and amateurish the footage we've been presented looks. There's nothing wrong with healthy skeptisism.

    My post wasn't aimed at either of you, mainly at the people that aren't gonna add anything to the conversation and just post the same snarky comments I've read a thousands times since I joined this forum 5 years ago. They'll reconise themselves.
     
  2. Hydr0city

    Hydr0city

    > Kamikazee Member
    I think the reason a lot of people in here are disappointed is that they're generally just burned out from the last few years. I'm someone who's excited for the game so far (I really liked how gameplay looked), but I can totally understand why someone wouldn't really be impressed. There's other efforts both from fans and from Sega themselves that do so much better in terms of what people want from Sonic, which does differ from person to person, and it might seem like Sonic as a franchise is just doomed to what seems like mediocrity. I don't really think it's that serious, but that's what I've heard/seen from other social media sites talking about Sonic, so I can understand. It can definitely get a bit much, but it genuinely comes from a love of the franchise. People show that in different ways, for better or worse.

    Me, I might just be easy to please, which is why I'm like "HELL YEAH THIS LOOKS GREAT", lmao. I generally just roll by a rule of "If it looks fun, then I'm gonna have a blast." and that's never really failed me so far. But I don't really blame anyone for not really having high hopes for this, and maybe being disappointed as a whole. I enjoyed what I saw, but I won't deny things looked a little too early footage-ish. Hoping it's just a early build they had footage for or something, but we'll see how it all plays out. Maybe they clean up real nice for it's final release.
     
  3. Lozicle

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    I am worried about how fair I'm being to it. How much am I criticizing it for what it isn't rather than what it is? Is it too much to wish Sonic could roll down hills?
    I like the boost gameplay, but I like it for the arcade-y score/time attack fun. It feels like the only reason it's here is because "well this is the 3D Sonic people liked before."
     
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  4. LucasMadword

    LucasMadword

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    I don't think it's unfair to judge the game based off of not only what we heard from interviews, but also the amount of time it's been worked on. For something that was supposed to setup the next 20 years of Sonic... it doesn't look like it's a massive overhaul the franchise needed. I don't think it's right to fully critique it until we've seen more (especially with the gameplay, we've seen very little, and a lot of it is still speculation), but from what we've seen, it is somewhat disappointing that it seems more of an evolution rather than a revolution, like promised.
     
  5. SuperSnoopy

    SuperSnoopy

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    Slice of life visual novel, coming soon...?
    It does look super jank yeah, can't deny that.
    I'm also an easy to please sonic fan, I can totally get why people didn't like Forces and might not be too impressed by this footage.
    I like healthy criticism and discutions around what sonic team could've done better, I really do. That's the reason I joined here in the first place.

    It's just...the Forces pre-release days on this forum were such an obnoxious fucking mess of toxicity and hate circle jerk you'd genuinely think sonic team killed their family or something.
    I didn't say anything back then, but I won't just stand by and watch one of my favourite place online turn into a fucking cesspit again.

    In the wise words of my mom: "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything"
     
  6. Snowbound

    Snowbound

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    I agree with this to the extent that we shouldn’t be dicks to people who have different opinions and that we shouldn’t harass the developers on social media.

    That said if this game’s bad... I think that we should (politely) make it very clear to Sega WHY we think it’s bad. Especially since there are folks who UNDERSTAND what makes Sonic good who Sega could hire for future titles (Headcanon, Evening Star, The Sonic Speed Simulator Team)
     
  7. Crappy Blue

    Crappy Blue

    Knuckles' Chaotix is a perfect game with no flaws Member
    At this point I'm happily skipping reading this thread. Four more pages since I checked in this morning after watching the IGN footage? It feels like people here and on twitter need to have immediate and concrete feelings on this game, positive or negative. What's the point in vocally being so final about this game at the start of a full month of coverage on it? It's like manufacturing discussion. I can't imagine having that much to say about the gameplay put up today.
     
  8. Hydr0city

    Hydr0city

    > Kamikazee Member
    Well, to be fair, it's good to have these critiques in the first place. I think what's making it a bit worse for all parties is that we don't have the game yet, hell this is the FIRST TIME footage has been shown since it's reveal almost a year ago. It's all just going off looks, what things might end up like, but there's genuinely no way of knowing until the game drops. It can definitely get a bit much, but I think it's just people showcasing frustrations that this is something that doesn't really spark that flame that got them into the franchise to begin with. Which again, is totally fair. I wouldn't say the discussion here is unhealthy, but it's just being amplified by current situations in which we literally cannot dissect things further. There's no playing the game to have further discussions about how it feels or anything. We have 7 minutes and a little more of footage, and that's basically it.

    Thankfully, they did say more news will be sprinkled across the month, but yeah, the wait isn't helping anybody, be it people excited or people who are a bit more critical, lmao.

    I think this is a bit unfair - obviously yeah it can be weird to see people make calls like the game isn't at most 5 or so months away, but it's literally people's first reactions. It's only 7 minutes, yeah, but it's that PLUS the fact that this is the first mainline Sonic game in 5 years. People are gonna talk about it, for better or worse. I don't think I'd say people are being vocally final (though I do think people saying that this isn't worth buying yet are being a bit too harsh - obviously not, it'll be a full game lol) but just voicing their initial impressions, be them good or bad. Which is fine, but I can get why that's tedious. The first impression can always seem a bit extreme on either end, be it people in awe or people who aren't impressed.
     
  9. RikohZX

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    There should always be criticism and feedback, without it nothing would ever improve, but nothing's gonna stem the tidal wave of shitposting something like this brings to the table, unfortunately.

    I'm in my negativity because while it wasn't 60 FPS and was clearly played by someone not trying to speed around to really show what the gameplay is like under skill and duress, I can practically feel all the Forces-isms and all the issues and crinkles in the movement alone.
     
  10. synchronizer

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    This looks worse than the Sonic Next Gen mockup reveal.

    Also, this really needs the boost and drift.
     
  11. I agree with @SuperSnoopy here- there's justifiably critical, and then there's needlessly toxic, which is what I'm already seeing many people in here falling into. Do you guys really have nothing better to do with yourselves than come into an online forum and scream at each other over how easily a fictional blue Hedgehog can run in a fucking circle? Hot damn-

    I can recognize where Frontiers succeeds and falls short, but I sure as hell don't feel the need to jump at people's throats in order to get my point across.

    It's a goddamm video game. If you don't like it, don't fucking buy it- no one is forcing you to. Let those of us who are optimistic just enjoy what we like- it's not like we're bleeding you dry by feeling like a new Sonic game looks kinda fun, unless of course, you mean to tell us that you literally thrive off of negativity.

    Sonic Frontiers looks... fine. I'm going to buy it. It's ok if you don't want to. But I'm already hearing multiple reports of people getting fucking doxxed for supporting this game, and that's so insanely petty and despicable I'm not even sure what to say.
     
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  12. Doafhat

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    My strongest feeling after seeing the gameplay reveal is "Okay, but what IS it?" -- and that's not exactly reassuring when the biggest question about Frontiers before the gameplay reveal was also "Okay, but what is it?"

    I dunno.

    I just don't get any kind of sense of confidence coming from this, which is the same feeling I've mostly gotten about Sonic this side of the last really big reinvention of the series in Adventure 1. The only exceptions to that feeling have been Unleashed and Mania; those were two project where it felt like the developers had a very strong and clear sense of identity for what Sonic is, even if the end results were mixed.

    Everything else has just been... a lot like this.

    This has the feel of there being some edict from on high at Sega to do something to reinvent the franchise, but without a realization that maybe there's no one in the room that has a firm idea of what that reinvention actually looks like. So, the solution is to take a look around at the wider industry, copy the homework of what's popular, try to fit Sonic into that and hope everything will sort itself out along the way.

    And also, it's just really weird that this was the first real look at gameplay. It comes across as a lack of quality control, and I'm not just talking about the pop-in and other technical things already discussed in this thread. When customers really get to see your product for the first time, it needs to be something they can feel confident and excited for, not confused and left to fill in the blanks for themselves. It's like they handed the build over to someone at IGN, told them "Okay, have fun!" and left them in an empty room for half an hour with the result being this kind of half-speed aimless run through the environment.

    So, again, I dunno. It may turn out to be something completely unexpected and fun -- hey, we all want it to be unexpected and fun! But just seeing how things have played out in the past, it's hard to shake that feeling of not really having a feeling.
     
  13. Starduster

    Starduster

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    To be completely honest, I do think this needed to be a more holistic overview of the game, even if it was half the length of what we got. I feel like yesterday's teaser was an attempt at this, but I understand the lack of confidence due to the vague nature of the footage up to now.

    I am already just so tired of all this negativity though. The game is six months out, we have less than ten minutes total of footage and already I feel like this thread is being suffocated by doom and gloom.
     
  14. Frostav

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    I can't mince words here

    I am stunned at how this looks they tried to define an open world with the gameplay philosophy of Forces. I really did think that there was no way they would try to do that, that going open world would force them to rethink Sonic's movement and controls. But no, this really is Forces but in an open world. They're trying to automate shit but since the world isn't a linear obstacle course it results in silly clashing shit everywhere. Dash pads, random rails, random platforms, random dash rings. Holy shit. It's an incoherent mess of stuff slathered over a simplistic field.

    I could forgive the boring art style if this game controlled like Utopia or GT or SRB2 or Spark but it clearly doesn't. I'm about to become the goddamn joker I swear, I cannot fucking believe they really are trying to make an open world with the same soulless automated design philosophy as Forces and Colors. I don't see any defining ambition or idea here, nothing that gives me the impression that Sonic Team has SOMETHING unique they want to do with this game. Even Forces had the avatar.

    I need to sit down. I think Sonic is going to just be a fanfic/fanart fandom for me now. Jesus.

    Classic fans, I now know how y'all felt during the Heroes-Shadow-06 triple roundhouse. The Adventure era is never coming back.
     
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  15. BadBehavior

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    Thats the boat im in. Iizuka saying "this is gonna be a paradigm shift unlike anything else in the series" and what he gives us is a boost game with a wider Z axis*. I know expecting a recreation of the Adventure engine was a long-shot but this is what they have to show after 5 years?

    I want to look forward to it, but at the moment all I can muster is very, very cautious interest.


    (*Then again he did also say that Forces wasn't Generations 2. Maybe he means the opposite of everything he says :V)
     
  16. Plorpus

    Plorpus

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    Add in:
    - solving small puzzles in the over world to unlock orbs

    I dunno, it’s got a lot of room for improvement but it looks fun to me. As long as it controls well and the open world isn’t barren or difficult to navigate I think it’ll be a decent to good game. The boost game move set doesn’t bother me. I think it’s a good, useful repertoire of abilities that can work well in more than one kind of 3D Sonic gameplay, and the ability to go at a higher speed than usual seems like a godsend for getting to other parts of the map, similar to the way BotW would be frustrating without gliding.
     
  17. MykonosFan

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    They allowed a bad debut of this game. Spreading out what this game is over a month clearly wasn't a great idea considering how some are twisting themselves already based on what has been shown. It doesn't look inspiring. The gameplay shown is meandering and confusing. Dude climbs a tower and stands there for a bit before going back down...surely something is meant to happen there or has already happened there. It's the immediate example of what's gone wrong today. I'm not inspired by what I saw.

    That said, we should be able to identify that this was a poor showing and separate that from immediate "this game is doomed" reactions. I'm not asking people to wait for release to judge what's been shown, or to like what they have seen here. But if we're going to discuss these 7 minutes in depth it needs to come with weighing the possibility that there's a cohesion to this game that hasn't been conveyed yet. I'm trying to cover against all nuance here since emotions are a bit higher, but I hope what I mean comes through. Not to mention that it's Sonic so we've had plenty of times where initial gut reactions of footage proved to be right in the end (see: 3 seconds of Sonic the Hedgehog 4). Again, I'm not asking for forgiving a game that SEGA is wanting to charge you for. But we need a healthier discussion.

    As an example, calling the developers "lazy" for basic graphical asset reuse isn't going to be tolerated in this thread. "Work smarter, not harder" is a phrase for a reason. There is plenty that can be critiqued and talked about without echoing a toxic phrase that, frankly, is lazy in and of itself. You don't have to like what they're showing, but if you're going to engage in discussion here at least entertain the possibility that there's more than meets the eye currently. Other humans have clocked in and clocked out for years to create this video game product aimed at kids. Question the direction, question the design elements, but be civil and practice some empathy so we can productively talk about the game. And at a point? If what you've seen here is something you dislike from top to bottom, it's okay to say, "This isn't for me" and go to focus on other things.
     
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  18. Mana

    Mana

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    I watched the trailer sveeral times trhing to find something I liked or could say seems interesting but I can't. This is doesn't look good. Not even in a "well the base is there, they just need to work out everything else" way. It just looks truly and purely not fun.

    I understand the idea of wanting a gameplay reveal that's just Sonic running around the open world but it doesn't install confidence. The world doesn't seem interesting to explore. No stand out points of interest or anything that instantly grabs me in an awe aspiring way.

    No use of slope physics despite all the hills and this being an open world. No parcouring through the trees or on the walls. Sonic looks like he plays extremely stiff. It's like they just ported him from Forces, an extremely linear game, without modifying him at all for this new gameplay style. It's not help that a lot of it seems automated with rails either.

    I wish I had something positive to say but I don't. I'm going to still buy it probably but like someone here said before it looks like the type of game that will be bough by Sonic fans who buy every new title out of habit and won't appeal to anyone outside of that.

    I hope to eat my words come November but it's looking unlikely. At least we still have Breath of the Wild to remind us big ambitious open world games can be amazing if the people working on it know what they're doing.
     
  19. MootPoint

    MootPoint

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    Personally for me, despite my previous comment being more on the negative side, I do think the final product will be a good game.

    We're in the era where I don't think we have any truly "bad" Sonic games in the recent years, just mediocre at worst. Looking at games like Forces in a bubble, it's not really the worst game of all time, it just can be much better. It's just very bad when you compare it to games like Generations, where I felt there was more thought put into the production. Disregarding the whole "nostalgia" angle that Generations has, the levels overall were better designed. Even Classic Sonic, with his weird physics and all, still has the creative and playful level designs.

    In that sense, Frontiers is more favorable in my eyes because at least they're doing something weird and new, not "Generations, but not as good", lol. I prefer this where they try to aim toward the star because at least if they fail, they can easily tighten up for the next game. Forces is just... you got it right in your previous attempts, so I'm not sure exactly what happened here.

    Also, again, I do acknowledge that they're drip-feeding us more footage throughout the month. I'm sure my initial reaction will ease up once we got a proper grasp of how the general gameplay will go. It's just the video released today didn't give me a great impression of what the game is about, y'know? I only got a broad idea due to leaks, but I feel if I wasn't in the know, I wouldn't be very impressed.

    Ultimately, I just wish they present the game better is all.

    I'm more than happy for my initial skepticism to be proven wrong, but I'm just disappointed in the sense of "Welp, I guess I have to wait some more to see what this game is about."
     
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  20. Shaddy the guy

    Shaddy the guy

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    I dunno, it looks okay I guess. If the problem Forces had was a lack of interaction with the game compared to Unleashed or Generations, then this does some amount of work to restore that. There's nothing specific that I'm losing my mind over, but the game doesn't seem to meet the standards for "incompetent" I feel like my arguments with people during the run-up to Forces seemed to suggest. It looks fine. I still feel like without the alleged "cyberspace" levels (assuming they exist) we're still missing a chunk of the game here. I joked last night about bad Sonic games being "saved" in the eyes of younger fans by being longer and having a lot of cutscenes, but I think an "okay" Sonic game the way this one is shaping up to be can be elevated to "pretty good" in much the same way.

    As of right now, though, it still feels up in the air. I don't feel like I have a concrete idea of the core gameplay.