So now we’ve had the time to let it marinade a bit, I think it’s the right time to opine that the IGN First coverage, and Sonic Team’s promotion of Frontiers last month in general, was a bit shit. The best thing to come out of this was the footage used in the post-SGF impressions. It was snappy and showed the game being played with a reasonable amount of competence. I can understand the desire to ease players into this shift in the formula, but the initial combat gameplay from IGN First was meandering. Showing the player failing to hit the flower enemy once was enough, for example. Overall the initial bout of gameplay footage just wasn’t exciting. What should’ve been more exciting were the boss trailer from Sonic Central and the cyberspace trailer from the Nintendo Direct. However, the boss trailer was pretty much devoid of context and the cyberspace trailer didn’t give us enough to chew on imo. I’d argue both of these needed more comprehensive follow-ups after the fact. We’ve seen from shaky, potato quality footage of SGF that there is some super interesting stuff in this game, such as the drop dash and handling customisation, but I think the issue is that what has been presented to us officially draws too sparsely from the game without expanding on it properly. I know we’re still 3 or 4 months out from release yet but I was really hoping June would be capped off with a holistic trailer featuring new footage of everything officially revealed to us so far, with some of those tidbits mentioned earlier thrown into the mix to further entice. It sounds like Frontiers is going to have a lot, so why be so tight on the details?
I would guess their intent was to try avoiding overloading news since it was june wide coverage, and give them time to give us everything spread out over the course of the year. It also probably didnt help that they didnt want to aggressively overshadow origins with tons of frontiers news. But it really just makes the whole idea of coverage throughout june really silly and honestly just a bad idea overall
Sega wanted to make that a whole month of Sonic with the birthday stuff, tripped over themselves with their initial showing of Frontiers gameplay being incredibly disjointed and awful, started to pick themselves up again with the second showing and word of mouth, and then lost their balance to fall in a creek with Origins' buggy release. They really need to just focus better on individual elements of the game these coming months instead of a "media blowout" that was trying to control a narrative they didn't remotely plan out in any competent sense.
They look more like gravestones than the "rock people" interviews have described them as. Wonder if that has any plot or theme relevance.
I don't know what to think, honestly. The faces are so similar to chao that I honestly don't get why they didn't just make 'em chao.
Come to think of it, they do give mayor Chao vibes, be it with their faces or the leaves they have at the top, which remind me of the antennae(?) Chao have. Considering how the latest "leak" posted here mentioned the presence of the Chao Garden, as well as the fact that apparently Sonic straight up name-drops it at one point in-game, specifically saying how Kronos Island would be a great place for one... Could the Kocos actually end up being...? Nah, this is likely just pure speculation. Unless- Spoiler: serious speculation >:( In all seriousness, though, I believe the Kocos could very likely be an ancient breed of Chao that are native to Starfall Islands, correlating with the aformentioned leak regarding + - the location's past status.
Let's just post the image here, make it easier: Given how similar the faces are and the fact that Flynn is involved, I'd be shocked if they weren't related to the Chao in some way.
I don't think Flynn would be involved considering SEGA explicitly gave him a list of usable characters, but let's not forget Sachiko Kawamura is a Producer for this game. Wouldn't be surprised if she has something to do with the design of these little things
I'm not familiar with the lore but aren't Chao at least related to the Chaos Emeralds? And the Starfall Islands have been either rumored or confirmed to be related to the origins of the Chaos Emeralds. This, together with the similarity of the two, gives me reason to speculate that they might be related. This is pure speculation and I don't think a Chao Garden will be in Frontiers.
Honestly? Stuff like that is making me think they are actually friggin' bringing Chao back. That's gonna attract sales, and if Kawamura remade her own system for the game, then I can imagine it being the same deal as the red rings or wisps where SEGA just slaps it into every forthcoming Sonic game from then on, and I'm not complaining. I just keep going back to the fact that Flynn explicitly wrote a line about Chao gardens in the opening minutes of a game where he knows whether or not there actually is one, and I'm wondering if I'm getting cope-baited the way I did when IDW was first coming out and a bunch of people thought Tangles silhouette was Sally, or if Ian actually understands what kind of fire he's playing with putting a line like that there.
Chaos himself is related to the Emeralds (he watched over the temple back then, and he's what the stones are named after in-universe after he wrecked the Echidnas), but I wouldn't call all Chao in general related to them just because Chaos is a mutated Chao. Unless there's something I'm not remembering, there's very little overlap outside of everyone's favorite puddle-boi.
If the inhabitants are different on each island maybe one of the islands have Chao on them and these Kocos are on the 1st island?
It sounds like the Kocos are part of the gameplay loop, so they'll probably be on every island. Otherwise it would be like having red star rings in one level and red moons in another. I'm sure they'll be an important part of the story, just like Wisps and Chao were important to the story of their introductory games.
Chao are sort of an elemental water creature, whereas these look like elemental stone. They also look upset, so my assumption is that they are some sort of denatured chao that will need to be restored as part of the process of restoring the islands. Why else make them so obviously similar? The idea that they are a primordial form of chao doesn't sit well with me, because they are different elements, but this is all fiction so there really is no rational basis I suppose...
Chao are not elemental water creatures. Chao are essentially the great mimickers, their primary trait is that they can copy the abilities of other creatures such as the small animals and have also been proven to be affected by exposure to chaos energy. Chaos you might be able to call an elemental water creature, but he's a unique case. He's a massively mutated creature that used to be a chao himself but is one no longer. We don't know why exactly he became a big puddle, but it's not really because Chao themselves are inherently water creatures. If there is some sort of connection between Chao and Kokos, then the elemental issue doesn't really exist.
