I mean I’m not particularly excited about Frontiers but I’ll say this, these games and the discourse they spawn is certainly unpredictable. For instance I am very pleasantly surprised that modern sonic rolls in the 2D stages. It makes the lack of rolling in the 3D open zone pretty glaring imo… but it’s something.
Thing is, the slide is basically a roll already. It gathers momentum on hills, even in Forces. Having both a slide and a roll is extremely odd to me.
All of those screenshots look great. I love the desert at night, and chemical plant just looks sick. Amy looks.... Different. I'm not sure how to describe it but she looks off compared to her other modern models like the one in Forces. It's not bad, just different. Sorta reminds me of her CG model in the SA1 opening. Hopefully the in game graphics will stack up to these screenshots by release, but remember, 06 also looked sick in screenshots like these and that game's graphics are questionable at best, so moderate your expectations on the visual fidelity side. Spoiler: 06 Screenshots that made the game look awesome
I think it's the different materials, same as Sonic. Similar or identical models, but the lighting and world reflect differently on them. Anyway, yeah, this is a really cool-looking area. I'm not sure if it's quite "Sonic", but this shot stands out more than any look at Kronos we've had. Also, the article is mostly what you've heard before, the only differences are some weird oddities like thinking Sonic's levels are capped at 50 instead of 99, and the mention of meteor showers containing enemies and items, compared to BOTW's blood moon.
That shot is everything I’ve wanted out of the game’s artstyle. Realistic textures combined with absurdist architecture.
That shot, plus the nighttime shot with the glowing cactus-like plants, has me really excited to see the rest of the locations the open zones have to offer. Hoping we can run on that lake... or maybe there's stuff hidden within it, considering you can finally go underwater again. Also, Sonic's homing shot pose still looks pretty janky... not sure if this is still the old build or if it's always gonna look this weird. Gonna recap the whole article as I read for those pressed for time: -Their playthrough began on Ares and was 30 min long -"Really excited" by what they played -There are allegedly only 3 Chaos Emeralds on Kronos -The Cyberspace stage they got to play was a 2D Green Hill Zone, so it's possible that there are... even more GHZ levels on Ares? Or they are referring to a stage we've already seen -They refer to the larger enemies as "Guardians", and said they fought one named something like "Stryker" or "Stalker" -SEGA staff said few people could defeat said enemy within the allotted demo time. They felt it was decently challenging -They discovered another crashed Eggman ship -The aforementioned meteor showers which drop enemies and items -"it's probably the most seven out of 10 game there is", but they had a lot of fun and didn't want to stop playing (note that's coming from a Sonic fan)
Here's a compilation of new footage stabilized by Beatz - includes Eggman and Amy cutscenes, along with the first Titan encounter and some Cyber Space gameplay. Also a bit of Open Zone gameplay. It's nice to see these stabilized.
It's really strange to me that Sega considers these cyberspace levels an afterthought, so much so that they're barely in trailers, and that the open-world stuff is the real "meat" of the game. Meanwhile, both fans and critics are going to consider the open-world a slog that you have to wade through to get to the "good stuff" that is these levels. Right now, Sega are probably extremely confused wondering why Sonic fans care more about the actual Sonic levels of this Sonic game.
Sonic Team would literally rather do anything else but make Sonic games, unfortunately whenever they do, people get mad and demand more Sonic games.
If the drop dash in the open world actually does pick up more speed as you go down hills (which it sounds like is the case, but I'd love to see it in action), then I as a fan and critic(al person) will gladly consider that the real meat of the game.
True, yeah. We heard Sega talk about playtesting their games to random people aka non-Sonic fans. And one of the things they got feedback to is that they could not get to grips with the speed (Lost World interviews frequently had Iizuka talking about Rings blending in previous Boost games). I noticed in the Cyberspace stages that the rings stand out a bit more in comparision to previous boost games, it seemed feasible to collect them, even one of the objectives is collecting a certain number of rings. People generally want to run around and explore where they want in 3D games. Hence Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom.
Is it strange? The open world is clearly where most of the effort is going. If anything I find it strange that fans focus so much on the cyberspace levels when they're clearly an afterthought. BOTW did a similar shakeup and yet, despite the complaints about that game's Shrines that I've seen, nobody seemed to focus so much on them as they do for Frontiers' levels. Interesting contrast.
I think I said this elsewhere, but...the difference with Zelda is that you had the Divine Beasts + Hyrule Castle to balance them out, and those were more "proper" dungeons. Frontiers doesn't have Generations-length levels to balance out these smaller, scrappier ones. Plus, the open-world is...kinda the point of Zelda. It inspired an entire generation of open-world games. So when you buy a Zelda game, it's fair to expect an exciting world to explore. Since the point of Sonic has always been linear, arcade-style platforming levels where you go fast, it's no wonder that fans are focusing on those since that's what they expect.
Hm, the 2D city stage looks pretty good tbh. Sure, it's not classics or even Advance tier, but it seems somewhere in between the high water mark of Forces (Luminous Forest) and the the first Rush game. The level design doesn't seem to be directly lifted from a previous game but then I'm quite unfamiliar with Unleashed so maybe someone will correct me on that. Anyway, in the GHZ footage, it looks like Sonic rolls in 3D after hitting a dash pad. I wonder if perhaps the slide will turn into the roll at high speeds? Also, as a fan, I'd contest the idea that the open world is merely going to be considered a slog when it's what myself and many others are most excited for. I think all the most interesting stuff we've seen so far has come from the open world, particularly with regards to combat. I do think it'll be all too easy to just run past combat encounters and such, but I get the impression that the game will hold a lot of value for those willing to engage with it.
IS IT? Only the very first zelda game was considered a truly open world game, then right after that, the very next sequel was a very linear side-scroller game, so right from the beginning the ditched the open world, it was never a defining treat of the franchise after that, sure you sometimes get hub-worlds, but it was never exciting, or the main point of zelda games, they all just served as a means to connect between dungeons , and they were often considered as the worst part of zelda games that no one really actually cares about and just a slog, people just comes for the adventure and dungeons it’s only with BOTW that the flipped things over, where the world actually got the most attention, while dungeons got downgraded effort compared to previous games, and actually considered some of the weakest in the franchise
Dreed (the guy who provided a lot of the quality analysis and recordings) did mention that there was a Cyber Space portal about 4x the size of a normal one in the distance...these might be those sort of "Divine Beast" moments for Frontiers maybe? EDIT: Where do you see this?
7:41. Looking at it again, it could just be a short hop, but the bitrate is so naff that unfortunately it's difficult to definitively say.
