I'm still dying to know how it's gonna perform on the Switch. How atrocious are the load times gonna be?
Yeah I bought a PS5 in April just because I knew this game was coming this year and that seems like it was a smart decision more and more as new stuff comes in. This is gonna look so beautiful on my 4k 65 inch OLED....
So let's assume this game does extremely well. Better than any 3D Sonic game to date. How would that make you feel.
Here's a Sonic Frontiers TGS impression. Edit: And 3 seconds of the dragon (?) boss. Man, that music tho', holy hell.
Oh, in my case, definely a good one. But I really need to hear the full song to confirm that, lol. But I really liked the beats in this one.
Apparently that's just showcase music, not Sonic music: https://twitter.com/CroftEliteSR/status/1570446221462114305?s=20&t=2pVpBYv_ts5xULWXyRQ4Sg
Happy that Sonic’s getting positive reception and…. Yeah, that’s about it. With the level of interest I don’t have in what we’ve seen so far, I’m probably not going waste money buying it myself unless it goes on extreme discount. Would I be mad? No, why would I be? Would I be shocked? I mean, open world games are really freaking popular in the mainstream aren’t they? And it is very apparent to me that critics and the mainstream do not value or focus on the same things hardcore Sonic fans though, so the lack or inclusion of certain qualities won’t bother them as much. (If you wish to interpret this as a nice way of saying they usually have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to Sonic, I won’t correct you) So no. I would not be shocked. Would I be scared for the future? No. I mean, I don’t really have any strong feelings about what Sonic should do or be. Mostly because I’m not overly attached to any of what Sonic already has been, so what to base that on? And this is a direction that is new and intriguing. So if they want to take another shot at it and do it better… Why not? Sure. I’m still probably not going to buy either this or a sequel, so it doesn’t affect me. In short, I personally don’t really care.
Good. If the game is excellent, that's a good thing. I really don't care what direction Sonic goes in. I don't care if it's Sonic 1 in 3D. I don't care if it's Sonic Adventure 3. I don't care if it's completely new and a bold direction like Frontiers. All I care about is if the game is good.
My feelings on how the reception takes hold would be entirely predicated on how I feel about the game myself once I play it. If I enjoy it and it does gangbusters, then great, I hope to see more. If I enjoy it and it doesn't do so hot, I'll be disappointed. If I don't enjoy it and it pans, I'll lament how this grand attempt to push the envelope ultimately fell flat and hope that they work on iterating and improving the next one. If I don't enjoy it and it does well, I'll be baffled but ambivalent and hoping that the next one does things that end up satisfying what I want.
I've never particularly cared not cared for a long time how well a given Sonic game does with groups outside of myself, and that's served me pretty well so far. If a Sonic game is good but other people hate it, or I think it sucks when everyone else doesn't, then good news! SEGA responds like a random number generator either way. A lot of Sonic fans talk about a supposed critical bias against Sonic, and while stuff like IGN's Unleashed video is embarrassing, I don't think that's ever been particularly true. But I do think there's a weird social bias surrounding the series, where if you liked Sonic in 2008-2016 or so, you were a gross weirdo or somehow didn't understand what you were playing. I think the advent of cheerful internet nihilism mixed with gen-Z nostalgia has lessened this a lot, but if I bring Sonic up outside of Sonic contexts (or the Very Gay Parts of the Internet), there's still an atmosphere of "really? Sonic?" about things, and I certainly wouldn't mind that going away. Unless it's padded to hell and back, Frontiers does not appear to be any worse than what I see critics give high 6 to mid 7 scores, though 8s would be very nice.
I get the feeling you're fishing, so let's get it out of the way... Disappointed that the Sonic I know and love would probably be gone for another 10-15 years.
If it turns out to be bad and it does well critically financially, I'd accept that Sonic isn't for me anymore and go play something else. I wish the Sonic fandom in general would be more open to trying new things that aren't strictly Sonic or Sonic-like, but that's a whole different conversation. I DON'T get people who somehow take it as like a personal slight that they don't enjoy the game lol.
A lot of people say this and I don't think it's true. Sonic's one of my favourite series but I don't know if I'd say it's my absolute favourite. I probably like Final Fantasy just as much if not more. And there are loads of franchises which I've really liked for a long time (Devil May Cry, Metal Gear, Total War, Hitman, Dynasty Warriors lol, Tekken, Street Fighter, Soul Calibur) or ones I've recently gotten into (Touhou, Neir, Undertale, Zelda, Persona). Undertale, Persona 4 and 5 are now some of my favourite games of all time. I probably like both more than Sonic at this point in time. I don't think I'm unusual in this respect. I think a lot of Sonic fans play a lot of games outside platformers. I get why people get frustrated when people who 'should know better' defend the Werehog and Shadow's gunplay. But it doesn't mean they have never experienced anything better in those genres. People don't always act rationally.
Yeah, I've not played a Sonic game outside a few hours here and there on Mania since I finished Forces well over a year or two ago. Did the whole game for Pokémon Sword and BrilliantDiamond, am still working on Great Ace Attorney, etc.
I brought it up like a hundred pages ago but like, 3D Sonic has had scripting from the beginning too, with the added wrinkle that the test levels in the SA Autodemo imply that Sonic Team experimented with "real" physics and dropped it. Nearly every fast segment in Sonic Adventure is scripted. You have automated paths, the loops, and narrow fields when it's not using either of those. The Casinopolis pinball levels even used a ton of automation, especially the NiGHTS one, despite it arguably being the easiest place to implement proper physics (pinball tables are basically 2D planes). It's practically a game feature of the weird little microgenre that is "3D Sonic" at this point. hahahaha and let me add to that, Platinum Games absolutely has fallen from having a benefit of the doubt as of late after the whole Babylon's Fall thing too, and yet people are (rightly!) hyped about Bayonetta 3, and that is despite it seemingly having this weirdly long and vague dev cycle! Happy. It'd be the first time since 06 came out and bombed that I've seen a "new Sonic direction" capture the minds of people who aren't Terminally Sonic like I am. Finally watched the TGS trailer. I'm a huge Evangelion/Evangelion-like mark so my hype seeing this has gone up. Also seeing Sonic get thrown through those towers is soooo anime and I'm hype for that too. Game's not a "take day off work to play it day one" for me still, but I'm definitely leaning towards a day-one purchase just to sate my curiosity, and I literally can't say that for a 3D Sonic title since I've become old enough to buy games myself.
There are two scenarios in my mind: If Frontiers is critically panned and/or recieves mediocre review scores, I hope Sonic Team don't take this as a sign that open design doesn't work for Sonic. The last thing I'd want is for them to fall back into old habits and become scared to try new ideas for 3D Sonic because of negative feedback. If Frontiers is critically acclaimed, then similarly I still want them to try new things. I would hope they don't become complacent and just continue to make the same game over and over again.
But it is. Yeah there are a lot of Sonic fans who play other franchises but there are a lot more who only play Sonic games and have no interest in other things. There's a reason Sonictubers can have 50k subscribers, get 5000 - 10k views on every Sonic related video they make, then when they branch out to non Sonic related content only get 1000 or so views, even if it's still in the kid platformer genre. SEGA can't even get most Sonic fans to check out Sonic Team's other franchises like Puyo Puyo, or their Sakura Wars remake, so at that point trying to get those people to look an entirely different franchises is almost impossible. There are a lot of Sonic fans with well rounded tastes and interests. There are also a lot more who only care about things that involve the Blue Hedgehog.
The player who recorded Big's fishing uploaded more videos of their playtime. We finally see what the sliders impact in this one: I want to pay special attention to 1:54. The player makes an infinity sign with the Cyloop and actually got infinite boost! Their boost was limited beforehand. And here is some good combat footage: And here is their full session:
