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

I actually watched a video about this that kind of explains the divide and why it happened.

Sonic Adventure is mostly immune to this since, while it does deviate a bit, it still mostly adheres to the Classic aesthetics; there are still badniks, the aesthetic is still pretty surreal, and the story more or less serves as a direct sequel to Sonic 3. Its easy for a Classic fan to rationalize Sonic Adventure and Sonic 3 are within the same series.

Then you get to Sonic Adventure 2; suddenly everything looks super photo-realistic, all of the Badniks are replaced by generic government robots in almost every level, and the story has very little in common with the Classics, instead focusing on Sonic's new, darker rival and suddenly there's a government that exists, etc etc.


All of that by itself would be fine, but Sonic Adventure 2 is kind of the point when the "Modern" aesthetic took over while the Classic Aesthetic was being phased out. Its like the transition of Dragon Ball to Dragon Ball Z, and when Goku grew to being adult. The OG Dragon Ball was gone after that, while the Z version became the "default". So to many Classic fans, it felt like Classic Sonic was being "replaced" and the Modern version was piggybacking off the success of what Classic had established. IT didn't really help the games that would follow the Modern path kept getting more and more divisive, which validated those feelings.

That's why so many were happy when Classic returned in Generations and Mania soon after; it felt like a return of "their" Sonic.

If this was directed at me, I'm purely speaking for myself here. And I'm taking a firmly neutral stance at the time being.

Like, if y'all wanna get excited or be negative, be my guest, Imma just be in the corner lol.

 

no ur fine have fun in t he corner there s snacks over the r e .

 

GeekCritiqie's video I imagine.

At the risk of derailing the topic, I can't help but feel that "rationalization" is the key word here, because quite frankly It seems to me that's what the majority of it boils down to. I don't see how SA2 has a "photorealistic aesthetic" but SA1 doesn't for example. The game literally uses textures created by photos they took of real life areas from their South American travels. It reminds me of the GeekCritique video where he insists SA2 starts with "Sonic in a City" which is "totally different than everything hat comes before"...even though SA1 starts in a City with Sonic jumping across buildings and then fighting a water monster that's being held up by the cops.
I'd argue Sonic escaping a government by jumping out of a helicopter and boarding out of the sky as he gets chased by robots that wanna capture him is more par for the course for Sonic than that. Eggman always had militaristic themes to him in the classics and Eggman chasing/hunting him down with his robots was kinds the shtick in previous media.
It seems to me the fact Sonic Adventure 2 was primarily played by a demographic that didn't own a Sega console as well as it coinciding with the shift and cementing of the Japanese terms and continuity to the masses had way more of a factor here than anything the 2 games do individually on a fundamental level (and the insistence on emphasizing SA2BATTLE to me only really exists to highlight where this divide is). Not to say differences don't exist. Like you said, in SA2, we primarily fight Military robots while in SA1 we are fighting Badnik like enemies (though they still exist in SA2). Thing is, I never saw the military robots as "overly realistic" compared to badniks either. More serious and streamlined by comparison sure, but they hardly look completely divorced from what I'd expect personally.

As someone who primarily grew up with DragonBall and not Z, I can kind of get that to an extent, but that sort of just makes my feelings towards this whoopla towards this shift even more certain it has less to do with the actual "shift" and more to do with the "air of the fandom and brand environment" surrounding the series rather than any shift itself. Things like Eggman referring to himself as Eggman, the use of the term "Earth" and again, the fact the game was enjoyed primarily by an audience that likely didn't own SEGA consoles preceding the death of the SEGA console brand I quite honestly feel played way more into things than any shift the games actually did. To me, the desire to cut a line between them and hyperfixate on whatever scraps of differences exist is a rationalization of what I quite frankly feel are exterior misgivings surrounding the brand as opposed to a general observation of differences about the games surrounding the two. Because for me, I just saw what was happening with every other series around the shift to 3D.
Games like Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy come to mind. I'd argue those 2 series' shift were far less gradual than Sonic in terms of tone and art direction, etc.
But this stuff about dead consoles and American continuity was not stuff I was privy to at the time. It's largely stuff I've learned (or at least taken the weight of) retroactively.

For me as a guy that played Sonic 2, 3 and SK and 3D Blast and SpinBall on Genesis, who wasn't aware of the 16-bit wars or any of that stuff, who, while I did grow up watching Underground and some AoStH, I didn't grow up with SatAM, I just saw Sonic turning 3D like every other series, all this stuff is just "internet stuff" to me.

Regarding Classic Sonic in Generations, I was fanboying seeing Classic Sonic in Generations myself because I had and still have a lot of nostalgia and emotional attachment for those games and levels. For me it was a vindication of the idea Sonic just got older between the Classics and towards the Adventure games, (and quite frankly even then that was the attitude most people around me had as well even on the internet).
I remember fanboying over the idea of being able to see Chemical Plant in full 3D and new remixed music. I wouldn't learn about all these attitudes regarding Classic vs Modern until after Generations.

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But enough about that.

I'm seeing a lot of people talking about Iizuka's statement regarding a new Adventure game. As someone who has historically told people to stop crying about wanting a new one because "we will just get 06 again, it won't magically save the series", and has since come to look back at said attitude as rather mindless and fearmongery, my sentiment is more "eh, If they do it that's cool, just do it well". Not like actively avoiding Adventure did the series any inherent good.

I see a lot of people saying this is "Iizuka holding Adventure 3 as gunpoint around Frontiers' success" and cmon guys.... That is really uncalled for. From what I've gathered, the statement was in reaction to someone specifically asking him questions regarding it, and supposedly the interview was done way in advance. This seldom seems like a reaction to Frontiers' reception and "damage control" like some are presenting it as. I'd go as far as to say people are putting more stock int0o the statement than is warranted across the board, though I will admit that the stuff about "using Frontiers to learn from in order to make new Adventure games" does give the ide amore credence.
Personally, I'd like to see remakes of the original games first before an actual Sonic adventure 3 or any such thing though.

At this point I just wanna see some story details and what the cyberspace levels are actually like. Give it to us already dangit.

 

Hmmm I don't think so. Sonic's not really allowed to cry, right? Even pure cinnabun movie Sonic didn't cry despite his loneliness, I don't think they're going to start off Frontiers by showing Sonic crying. I think he's just getting up and recovering from whatever knocked him out.

 

Nope, I would have cited him.

This video, specially this portion I'm linking near the end since I don't expect anyone to watch an almost two hour video.

 

Oh Pariah! Watched all his stuff. Love his channel and his content, in fact you probs can find my comments in his videos. That said, I don't think he makes all that compelling a case in regards to this either.
Btw, for the future this site doesn't do timestamps. Might wanna list the timestamps in the post next time.

 

Well, one of the mandates during the Archie comics run was that Sonic could not be shown to be overly emotional (as in, crying hysterically and such); he could still mildly cry, but not shed waterfalls. One of the panels from "Mobius: 20 Years" (I think?) had to be redrawn because of this. I'm not sure if, nowadays, they made this mandate stricter, though.

As for the footage itself, it seems hard to make out his expression because of the blurriness and frame locks.

 

People wildly overstate the SEGA emotion mandates. Sonic isn't a guy who breaks down sobbing. It's not just a corporate rule, it's a character trait.

EDIT: another guy alleging he played the game. Some of the details feel a little inconsistent (and nonsensical, wtf does "generations gameplay with Forces sky sanctuary assets" mean), but he does seem to have been there.

 

All the controversy comes from this image, where the lineart was edited prior to release.

Now, in all fairness, I do think it would've been ok for Sonic to cry here, because in the context of the story, he's a forty-something year old bum who's lost his kingdom, his wife, and custody of his children. Is that an appropriate tone/direction for the character? Probably not, but it would make sense for him to have a breakdown and cry about that, even if he is Sonic the fucking Hedgehog.

But nobody wants to see Sonic cry outside of this kind of weird what-if fanfiction crap.

 

At a glance it seems this guy was legit at SGF:




Listen if folks want to be excited about Frontiers I’m not trying to take that away from them. I also understand there are folks who like what has been shown off and I respect our difference of opinion. But I see people who have disliked the 14 minutes of gameplay Sega have shown off and are desperately hoping that what hasn’t been shown off is going to be better. Sega has made infamously bad decisions before so I wouldn’t say it’s impossible they are hiding the best aspects of the game.. but I would advise folks to temper their expectations. It’s not cynicism, it’s not jumping the gun, it’s a conclusion based of the information we currently have from 14 mins off gameplay, confirmations of jank from journalists and apparent level reuse. the simplest explanation is that the game is not great. Maybe time will prove me wrong, hell I hope it does... but in many cases the simplest explanation is usually correct.

 

You’re 100% right. I’d like to clarify that the comment I made regarding my view of the game was not in direct response to megazx456, whom I’ve never heard of prior to today. It’s just a general summation of my current attitude towards the game given what Sega themselves have shown off and what IGN said in their hands on preview.

 

Thing that sticks out to me most right now is him saying the level allegedly reused was Sky Sanctuary…from Forces. Maybe it was a slip-up, or something, but idk, it just seems odd to me. At any rate, I don’t think we’ll be seeing wholesale level ports, but perhaps reuse of some locales and hopefully only where appropriate. If the prologue is closely tied to the main game and Sonic does visit Angel Island then Sky Sanctuary makes sense, but I hope we don’t end up seeing the gratuitous returns of CPZ and such.

 

Some people just aren't knowledgeable to remember per-game stuff, they just know they saw it before. Take what gets said with grains of salt but we have physical if blurry-as-heck evidence pointing to its existence.

 

He clarified later that he misspoke and meant to say Generations.

 

At any rate, I think we’ll be looking at new level designs with reused/touched up assets. I know someone earlier up the thread complained about 11 year old asset reuse, but honestly, graphical diminishing returns is beginning to set in profoundly now, moreso with stylised series like Sonic, so I don’t think this’d be a huge deal so long as reuse is appropriate. HE2’s lighting will already help gussy things up and I don’t think Frontiers art direction is a million miles away from Generations, with the difference lying more in environmental aesthetic.

 

Again, they should be using that new lighting engine to its fullest potential! Using different times of day to light the same assets can do wonders in separating the stages aesthetically.

 

It'd sure be cool if the action stages reflected the current time of day in the overworld.

 

Oh god. Are we gonna be hearing the return of something like this?

 

People keep saying that, I think it's going to be like the battle music in any other open-world action game, probably a lower-key track akin to Zelda or Elden Ring.