FanByte’s impressions are fairly critical. I’m sure the writer played the same demo as everyone else so I wonder if maybe the control sliders we’ve heard about weren’t reset or the writer wasn’t informed. Or it could just be they plain didn’t enjoy their time regardless.
Impressions of him that i found from somewhere else were like this: we know there are 2 different control schemes , so it could be that he chose one that isn't suited for him or just that he wouldn't enjoy it regardless , which is fair He said that though This is a win in my book
Damn, seems like impressions are fairly mixed, but the biggest point of criticism is probably the technical side of things. I went back and rewatched some of Unleashed's trailers from 8-2 months before release recently, and honestly I feel that gave me a bit of a fresh perspective on how unpolished a game can be right up until release. Sonic running through knee-deep water with no visual effects or feedback, enemies T-posing / having boring animations when dying, weird unfitting sound effects, choppy framerate, some glaring pop-in, bland and unfinished boost effect, unfinished animations and certain animations lacking any transition, etc. Yet that game ended up super polished upon release. This could be hopium, but I honestly think Sonic Team's development timeline is a bit wonky, and oftentimes they will wait until the last few months to finish things that other developers finished super early on. On the physics / collision side of things I've seen people who played Frontiers saying they occasionally flew off of things or fell into surfaces for seemingly no reason, and honestly that is what scares me lol. It's been a long time since Sonic has been able to freely run over terrain like this without restrictions, and I hope the game isn't buggy as all hell because of that. Granted, I still enjoy Sonic Adventure to this day, but standards are different nowadays and it's hard to give the game a pass when it's been over 20 years. I also feel bad for anyone who was looking for something else. This game looks like it could be very good, but it's also a huge departure from what most people expected out of the series. Frontiers looks like it has enough Adventure DNA to satisfy my monkey brain (even if that DNA is just the format, less goofy story, and the re-introduction of the overworld), but those aren't exactly the parts of Adventure most people have been hoping to see a return from.
Spoiler: big image Here's a closer view of the HUD. It includes a speedometer, compass, and quantites for rings, portal gears, keys, and heart pickups, apparently used to restore Amy's memories. The bottom left corner has level counts for attributes, I assume they are ring capacity, attack, defense, and top speed.
Well, given that you have a defense stat, that suggests that getting hit could take a variable amount of rings from you, so it kind of is a health meter even if it doesn't look like one.
The way Khan describes the game in this article is more or less exactly what I feared when the gameplay footage first dropped this month. Although, I am feeling a lot better about the game from this new footage. Obvious jank aside, I think some of the fights look cool and I still really believe that the CyLoop is one of the most interesting and unique concepts in this game Not a big fan of Iizuka admitting that the game won't be delayed and the devs are in crunch, working long nights to make the game though
So every attribute has a max level of 50. How do the rings even work? I assume they act as Sonic's health, but 18/400 is awfully low, and it seems like it would take a long time to reach 400 just grabbing rings in the world, especially if Sonic keeps losing them. What happens when Sonic grabs 400? Is that just max health, or does he level up?
Here's what Iizuka said in response to people's reactions: He's essentially saying they did a bad job explaining it, and that's why people don't understand it. He's not "oh you just dont understand, its too complicated for you blah blah", but news outlets took that and ran with it because of course they did.
Suggestion: a different topic to document those differences. I think the whole "game development" side of this story is being lost in floods of "this game looks good/bad". Right now I can't tell if we're actually looking at two different builds, or potentially the same build with tweaked settings.
One of the impressions describe that rings are your health, basically like every other Sonic game. You can increase the capacity through various means, such as trading in collectibles you find throughout the game to an NPC. EDIT: Link toward said information
Ok this clears it up a lot more. The way the quote was being misinterpreted by people made Iizuka seem super condescending lmao
I hope the next build we see fixes this: Maybe one of those control setting disables jankilly staying glued to most surfaces but I get the feeling that this happens: because they’ve set scripting flags for areas like that rather than having it happen naturally anywhere.
The HUD looks elegantly minimalistic. It doesn't use fancy colors which detract from the gameplay, it just shows white icons and numbers to convey information. It certainly seems like an improvement over Forces. I am especially not a fan of the speedometer—if that's even what that is—to show Sonic's speed while moving. I'm also not a fan of the HUD element showing the player's levels in various stats—perhaps this could be tucked away in a menu somewhere. The total counter next to the levels and rings elements also seems unnecessary. If we're lucky, perhaps there is an option somewhere to disable or modify certain parts of the HUD. Overall, I don't have huge complaints.
I do think it’s funny that the head of development is saying he’s not surprised by the reactions. Like, c’mon. If you knew this would be the reaction, why didn’t you tailor the demo accordingly, and / or do more to explain the unique features of the game? They’re clearly under extreme pressure. Either SEGA have given them more than they can chew again, or Sonic Team are very bad at planning and sticking to deadlines. That mention of crunch time is just… saddening. I’m cautiously optimistic about this game, but my god, SEGA need to do something to revitalise the development team and their operations. I feel bad for the team, to be honest.
Should be noted, Crunch is pretty much the norm for Japanese game development. They really frown upon taking time off unless you're literally dying. Remember how Iizuka got sick from developing Heroes? Its one of the reasons for the conflicts between SoA and SoJ back in the day
