Im mixed on the Chao Garden coming back. On one hand I think it's an unremarkable mini game from the 2000s and that resources would be spent better elsewhere. If they made a Chao Garden now they would have to hire a little team to work on it most probably. On the other hand, people have huge nostalgia for it and would be really happy if it returned. So eeeh why not.
This was a fun little interview. I get the inpression that after being with Sonic for so long, Iizuka has a kind of nostalgic appreciation for the series but in a completely different way than we would have as fans. I also just realised that Takashi Iizuka and Kazuyuki Hoshino are kind of the last remaining links to classic Sonic at SEGA. I'm really interested by Iizuka saying he knows what the next game will be. Does that mean they're already building prototypes or that they just have a vauge idea? It'd be cool to see Iizuka be more hands on and actually direct the next game, if only to see if he brings back any of the Adventure design philosophy back.
Interview with GameInformer about their time with Frontiers. Donnie made a thread about it that I'm going to copypaste here for ease of access. Spoiler "I don't think we knew this before: the areas of the map you can't access at first are "fogged over". We know it's not all immediately accessible, but now we know how the game indicates what's accessible or not." "You get ranks in the Cyberspace levels!" "About Amy: "She seems to remember that 'this is Sonic helping me' & 'I just want to help the Kocos'". Her ability to communicate with you apparently gets stronger as you finish her missions." "Some speculation is that Sage "SEEMS helpful but may have some self interests of her own". He's speculating though because Sage comes off as "a little stoic"." "About the dialogue: it was "kind of limited" due to the build being even earlier than the one IGN played, as well it it being mostly in cutscenes. But Roger Craig Smith is mentioned as doing a "great job" based on what dialogue he DID hear." "Sonic is "alone for most of the game", but he does talk to himself every now and then." "He learned from Iizuka that quips that reference previous games, such as the "Chao Garden" quip we learned a little while ago, was to show that this is connected to the Sonic timeline, the latest story with that." "Also: that quip is why he asked Iizuka about the Chao Gardens in yesterday's interview." "Cyberspace seemed to be the driving force of triggering a lot of cutscenes". "Amy's memory tokens (hearts) are marked on your map. Kocos you need to find first are not." "The place you fish with Big? You have to find Big in Cyberspace first, but once you do, Big and his "fishing place" will also be marked on the map. He THINKS the purple coins you collect are for Big. Elder Kocos that will help upgrade Sonic are marked on the map too." "You do NOT fish as Big. You fish as Sonic. He also speculates that these "voice diaries" that you can buy from Big's shop are Big documenting his journey." "Sonic controls "very good". He feels the right weight and connected to the ground. He's fast but "not boost era fast". You'll get to your destination fast though. The only tweaking he thinks was needed was precise platforming with double jumping is "sometimes a little finicky"." "He's not 100% certain about it, but he THINKS there's a battle theme, or a "song that picks up as you enter combat"" "There may be Green Hill in Cyberspace, but there's no remixes of Green Hill's music. It was a completely new song." "There were TWO levels themed after Green Hill, and one that was Chemical Plant." "He says he thinks he kind of used the "Metropolis" wording rather loosely and doesn't think it's a Metropolis from past games. He also thinks that the city level we saw in the Direct is the one he called "Metropolis"." "He also mentioned a "Sonic Unleashed-themed stage"." "The tutorial Cyberspace level is very short. He even remembers finishing it in "52 seconds". He says he played only 5 or 6, but he did mention that he thinks that "they were getting longer"." "He mentions that they're not really easy either. He mentions one level, either Chemical Plant or the city one, that took him a few tries. And yes, there's branching paths in "at least a couple of them"." "Oh god, some of the missions to get Chaos Emerald Vault keys in these levels? Getting S-Ranks." "Enemies that were in the original versions of the levels are carried over to the Cyberspace levels." "The Chaos Emerald vaults are scattered around the island. For example, you can find one on a hill" "He feels that there's good momentum as he starts running and stops running." "We got another re-confirmation, via what Iizuka told him, that we will NOT be seeing a large cast of characters due to the Starfall Islands being an "uncharted place that no one has been to before"." "We already knew that there's some skills you unlock as your progress through the game, but we mentions that there's "a few of them"." "He says he didn't see more than 7 Cyberspace levels on the island map. However, he was able to play around 5-6 & he didn't even open up all of the island's map. He only played on the northwest part of it. He says he wouldn't be surprised if there was "around 10 on each island"."
Kind of feel like this has been an issue since days 1 with the boost games. I sort of get the feeling Sonic doesn't control too differently from the last couple of games. (Well, other than the new moves, talking more specifically about how's he going to handle in boost levels.)
The fact that he played around 5-6 cyberspace levels, but only explored less than half the island, is definitely interesting. Especially since he didn't recall playing the Sky Sanctuary level. I wasn't expecting more than 7 levels per island, but if there really are around 10 or so instead, that will definitely make their short length more palatable in my eyes.
The bit about having multiple vaults on the island implies that you need to collect the emeralds on every island instead of just once for the whole playthrough. So each island would end with a super sonic boss fight. Interesting thought
Why is their marketing tactic telling us how great this game is instead of actually showing how great it is when it’s supposedly just a few months away?
I can’t recall any recent marketing for a soon to be released game from a major publisher that is similar to this, it’s like the pre and early Internet when mostly all game coverage was written. They’d have a good idea that the marketing is horrible at this point but it’s still been more of the same, it all seems to hinge on the idea that we should trust Sonic Team as if they have a proven track record where they can get away with doing more telling than showing.
I don't know what to tell you dude, SEGA has been on this drip-feed scheme for years now and they want this game to feel "mysterious", I already wrote that post where I pretended to be a starry-eyed child enraptured with the progress of this dumb series, and I know from experience not to take "ohh noo they're EMBARRASSED by the game!!!" seriously as a justification.
-ranks in the Cyberspace levels My kingdom for a good scoring system instead of just speedrun targets, Sonic Team I swear to Christ.
I think this could be like Halo Infinite and despite all the hate and knocking, actually, turn out to be one of the best games of the year. Bit sad to see SEGA not looking to any collectors edition's let. I hope that changes in the run up to release. I loved the Sonic Gnerations CE
That's the thing, though -- there really hasn't been a lot of hate, at least not from my perspective. The initial reveal did a lot of damage, but the public has warmed on the game (or at least not gotten worse) pretty much every time new stuff has been shown off. Within the fanbase, there's basically nothing this game can do at this point that will ever put discussion in as bad a place as it was for Rise of Lyric or Forces. I think the game will certainly review better than those games, probably better than Unleashed or Lost World as well. Whether it manages to stand out as a game that people genuinely like will probably depend on whether it actually makes decent use of the foundation we've seen, which I think is fundamentally OK. I don't think it's going to be "one of the best games of the year" either way, that's a competitive market and even the best Sonic games don't really hit that mark; I'm more interested in the things this game does to appeal to Sonic as a niche demographic than whether it meets broad expectations of the wider gaming community, because gamers fucking suck Sonic as a property is weird and idiosyncratic and it should lean into those things.
But they were taken out of context. One was an environmental focus and it was made clear, but people looked to put the boot in and say the world looked empty and you then had a battle focus and people moaned about that. I just dislike the double standards, Elden Ring was showen off with last gen graphics and people rave about it. I think it be very much like Halo Infinite, a game that also got so much hate on its early showing. So hopefully Sonic Frontiers will follow that and actually turn out to be a great game and people will love running around the open world. I would have rathered a remake of Sonic Adv (for me the best Sonic game ever) or a sequel to Sonic Gen myself , but I'm really looking forward to Frontiers
The only people who took the game out of context was SEGA. Once we got a less-terrible showcase, people had less-terrible impressions. I don't see what's so complicated about this. Regardless, again, things are still more optimistic about this game on all fronts than they have been in years past. It's just not a good prediction on your part, I dunno what to tell you. I don't even think the game will be bad, but it's not gonna be GOTY material. Sonic...really only ever was GOTY material for two games back in the 90s, and one of them had to be split in half.
A lot of the initial negative reception came from a combination of a lack of context and the public and fan's general predisposition to assume the absolute worst about Sonic. When more information became available, a lot of that negative reception lessened. Sad to say but jaded reactions to Sonic are basically the norm due to how this series has been handled.
Iizuka himself even admitted that Sega didn’t do a good job revealing the game and that he wasn’t surprised by the initial reactions as a result. So I’m not surprised impressions are improving as the showcases improve.
This is definitely gonna be one of those games where some love it and others hate it to death. So business as usual lol.
