Kind of surprised people aren't talking about the soundtrack in this thread more - the entire OST is just... it's so good. I am so ridiculously excited for it to get officially released.
What in god's name are you talking about. This is the most free Sonic game that has ever been made. You can constantly use the game's controls and physics to go places I'm not entirely sure you're meant to be, it leads to some awesome moments. I've done quite a few skips so far just by creatively using the game's physics system with the rails or launching myself off of a ramp while boosting. These opportunities present themselves every second you're playing the game. You must be a comically uncreative player or something if you really believe the bullshit you're spouting off.
I think “bad game design” is usually code for “game design decisions I don’t like.” Controlling snappily outside of rolling isn’t inherently bad if the game is designed with that in mind. There are numerous platformer that do this. Every cyberspace stage controlling completely differently from the rest of the game without any regard for the level design? THAT’S bad game design.
I kinda get what she's saying, but only in regards to the memory token challenges. Those are very much "do this this way" and they're filled with dash panels, spring combos, all that stuff. It does feel a little weird sometimes and it gives me the idea that they're not completely confident in giving all the control to the player. I don't think it's "poor design" necessarily, but I do wish they'd take away control from the player a bit less. The last two islands do a much better job of this in my opinion. Also, no, nobody is "wrong" for having a different viewpoint on a game. "You're wrong lol" is not an argument.
Half of the arguments in this thread have just been "you're wrong" at their core. My comment wasn't meant to be taken too seriously. At least I didn't accuse anyone of "spouting bullshit".
I do find it fascinating just how opinion has split on this game. Almost every single element of the game has just as many fans as it does detractors and even within those camps there are a variety of reasons for people holding anyone one opinion. Granted, we're still in the honeymoon phase but I wonder just what Frontier's legacy will be. Of course, this isn't even taking into account the possibility of patches in the future. I doubt we'll get any dramatic overhauls such classic styled physics but I think performance is a big thing that would get a lot of attention and I hope that cyberspace physics will be improved, too.
Color me surprised if any substantial patches that aren't just bug fixes get released, really. This doesn't seem like the kind of game to get DLC or any substantial updates.
I dunno, if we're really waiting another five years for a mainline game, then I could see lots of ways of repurposing the one we've got for a shorter DLC campaign. Not everyone can be From Software, but a Knuckles story with maybe 2 smaller original locations (even if you just have to chop up, recolor and rearrange stuff from the base game), 5-10 cyber levels, some new cutscenes and a couple cool bosses? I'd buy that. The giant mass of platform, rail, spring, and dash panel objects cluttering an otherwise-empty world tells me Frontiers is kind of inefficiently designed for its size, so a more focused approach would be both less stressful on development and make a better game.
According to what I've read from others users, the baseline is still 4K, 30 fps on current-gen consoles, the option for 1080p, 60 fps is a toggle in the settings. These are honestly OK benchmarks for modern standards, Frontiers has demanding features but games with higher graphical fidelity often offer 4K, 60 fps or 1080p–1800p, 120 fps. The standard for current-gen consoles was slated to be 4K, 60 fps although we do see many games not reaching these benchmarks. I would have expected at least 4K, 60 fps in a fast-moving game. Overall, the game does run fairly well on different hardware specifications like you said and I'm not too bothered. The game does seem well optimized for the Series S.
The one thing I want them to patch is the light dash, mostly because I hate the way Sonic just abruptly stops after using it. There's already a mod on PC that fixes this. in general it'll be interesting to see what things get patched, if anything at all. I was always pretty impressed with how they listened to feedback with Lost World and patched most of the major complaints people had. This is why the world needs Miiverse again lol
Anyone with a Series X/S and capture card wanna make a video of the Sonic Frontiers ad on the Xbox home page? It's interactive.
There's not a many games on PS5 or Series X running at 4k 60fps. And if they are they're either using Dynamic 4k or they're extremely simple titles. The systems are powerful but they are not that powerful. The most really demanding games have pulled off are 4k 45 right now. Alright I disagree. Adventure 1 still feels more fluid than this game and the bounce physics in this game are glitched. I've flown in the air out of nowhere way too many time just running up a rock and jumping at the wrong time which never feels fun. Also I respect Laura's opinions even if I disagree with them. She at least went out and bought the game to see how she felt about it herself so these are all her genuine opinions not based on what she's just seen but what she's played. If she still doesn't like the game after paying $60 she has every right to express it but I do think continuing to call the game objectively "poor quality" or saying "in a year people will realize this is bad" isn't helping anyone see that.
Yep, went back and double-checked too. Nothing is left undone on the map. Even so, I should have at least gotten the challenge/map completion and portal restoration achievements. It says I'm only 40% and 60% finished with those, so something screwy happened somewhere along the way. After playing a couple hours at launch, I came back to it the next day after work and the game booted up from the beginning instead of doing Quick Resume (since then it's worked fine), so I wonder if that has something to do with it. Edit: There seem to be some other Achievements it's not tracking correctly, like defeating all the Guardian types and using Phantom Rush however many times. Greeeeaaaat. Oh well, I guess at the end of the day the game is still a lot of fun and that matters more. I'll play catch up on a second playthrough someday.
The game is quite good, honestly. I'm currently finishing up the second Island. The worst part are basically CyberSpace levels. Not fun, and the controls just don't feel right, thank good it's better in Open Zone. Still, the combat could be a bit better polished. Overall, from what I've played - it's a solid 3D Sonic Game. I've waited around 10 years for something like this. It's what Lost World should have been back in 2013. And the music... It's quite good too. And the lore. Oh my God, the lore. FINALLY.
I did not like the cyber space levels at all at first but after playing through arcade mode and trying to get some good times, they grew on me. The new controls take some getting used to but they will really let you really move around in the air. Not sure how these Instagram links will go but here’s some footage of me playing when I was time attacking (spoilers in case anyone cares about cyber space but I think these are all from Island 1 and 2): https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkyqQrZIkv8 https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ckyve1zI1QY https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ck02Hr4ozpw It’s nothing groundbreaking but I really like how you can use the double jump, air boost, and homing attack in tandem more easily in this game. The air boost also carries vertical momentum when being launched up so there are some good tricks in the 2D stages that utilize that (though they are still a bit too slow for my liking).
Yeah, it's banger after banger, at least when you're not free roaming. Forces was good too. I just want to move away from constantly revisiting old scenery so that these tracks can have a "home". If I see Sky Sanctuary or Chemical Plant one more time...
Beat the game last night, after 26.2 hours. Some things I liked more than I expected to, other things I disliked more than I expected to. Overall, I enjoyed it. Long post (broken into sections) incoming: Balls & Slopes: Ever since we learned this was less "Sonic Utopia but official" and more "Sonic Generations with open level design", I adjusted my expectations accordingly, and did not approach the game like a Sonic Game™. Instead, I approached it like I would any other open world game. So, the rails, dash panels, pulleys, boost rings, etc. being the constituent parts of the level design as opposed to the geometry proper didn't bother me at all; it's indeed Boost gameplay with more open level design, something I've honestly wanted ever since first watching gameplay trailers for Unleashed's daytime stages in 2008. There was a small window there after we learned the Drop Dash was in the game that I became hopeful I could have a blast being a ball rolling down a hill, but I quickly learned that you can't steer as the ball, and you get taken out of the ball way too quickly. And having to press the jump button three times was really annoying. Shame. Oh well. That said, this is the nicest Sonic has felt to control in 3D since SA2. I like it. While you can't reliably slope jump or anything, it's satisfying when the janky collision launches you through the air while you're boosting along. Mapping: Like most open world games, one of my main interests is in cartography - I like filling in the map. In Breath of the Wild, I love going for those towers; in Elden Ring, I love going for those map fragments; in Valheim, I love exploring far and wide and having the map fill in anywhere I explore. Initially, I didn't really take in what the map icons meant, as there were so many. I would stumble onto a puzzle, solve it, and I'd get more map. My main gripe here is what gets filled in with each puzzle you finish: just a bunch of squares. That's not as pleasing to look at as a more organic chunk getting filled in on the map; it's so little being added that it's kind of disheartening; it's not as satisfying as in Valheim where what gets filled in is the literal ground I covered; and if you're just solving puzzles you stumble onto, the chunks you get filled in are disconnected and splotchy. But, by the 2nd Island, I got a certain rhythm down. I realized what the icons for the puzzles were, and it clicked that I just needed to seek those out on my map, which would fill out more of the map, which would show me where more puzzle areas were, etc. A feedback loop that really worked for me. I also liked the music in the Open Zone. Nice and peaceful, perfect for exploring. Open World Level Design: I also enjoyed the 'ROM Hack tier' scattering of objects in the skies. Well, the impact they had on gameplay, at least. In the first three Islands, I was letting myself get pulled into whatever bit of level design I'd stumble onto, trying to check every nook and cranny. This resulted in me usually having enough memory tokens to talk with the side characters as I found them. But by the 5th Island I was getting kind of anxious to finish the game already, so I didn't explore as thoroughly. As a result, I was short on memory tokens for a while. But this caused something else to click which was pretty satisfying. I'd be able to mark a memory token on the map, run there, see it somewhere in the sky, and it would then become a game of "okay, how do I get up there?", which added an additional layer of puzzling. A nice consequence of open world platforming is that it recontextualizes the struggle to get from Point A to Point B by giving the player the freedom to decide what Point B is. This is something I've long maintained would be how you could make Sonic work in an open world, and I feel largely vindicated. Disappointed you can't run on water while Boosting, but it's fun that you can drown. Combat: Hated this less than I expected to. You can usually dispatch shit pretty quickly. And, for the most part, you can just run away from shit you don't want to bother with. Main exception being a mob of enemies on the 5th Island that force you into a small cutscene encounter before you're free to fuck off. Cyber Space: Hated this more than I expected to. Way more. Genuinely disappointed, here. I've seen people say that Forces felt worse than this, but I got the opposite impression. I thought it was very ambitious of Sonic Team to make the clunkiest take on the Boost formula yet. These were extremely unfun for me, and I was glad whenever I reached the end of one. I didn't bother to go back and complete any missions that I didn't already get the first time through. I still wanted to make sure to play all of them once, at least, but man. I might have enjoyed them more if the Boost wasn't gimped, and if you didn't need to press the Boost button again after landing. This was the most fun I had playing the Cyber Space stages. "What SA2 level is this one??" It was a fun moment when I realized I was playing Metal Harbor. But overall, the sense I got when I played them was "I'd rather just be playing SA2/Unleashed/Generations proper". The rewards for clearing missions being vault keys was also a let down. I understand that it's important for the gameplay loop and all that, but this gave me way less incentive to revisit them than Forces did. I was dedicated to getting Succ the Cock the full wardrobe (and ended up S Ranking every stage in Forces to do so). But the reward you'd get for S Ranking the Cyber Space stages were things you could also get elsewhere. Which is something I do like, and will touch upon farther down, but it just meant that I had a way better time playing Sonic Forces than I did playing Frontiers' Cyber Space stages. I had no incentive to replay these and give them a chance to grow on me. Silver lining is that I wasn't expecting these to be the meat and potatoes of the game, anyway, and my interest in Frontiers never hinged even a little bit on their presence in the game. Music was solid, and the asset reuse still didn't bother me at all. As others have said, it would have at least been nice though if they reused more than 4 stages worth of assets. Bosses: At the start, I had it in my head that, like the Cyber Space stages, I'd beat each Guardian at least once. But I really hated Squid on Island 1; when the path you're running on winds up and down, you can't see which lane the shots it's firing at you are in, so it's too easy to have no rings by the time you get up close (and getting up close takes needlessly long). So then you get hit once, and you have to do the tedious song and dance of landing on it again. After like 3 tries I decided it wasn't worth the frustration. Then this game's version of a 'Blood Moon' happened, and the ones I did beat respawned. So I said "fuck all that". I think I still fought most of the ones on Island 2, and at least a couple on Island 3. Island 5, I fought maybe one of them. I like that you could run away from these if you didn't want to bother. However, it was annoying after a while to inadvertently get close to one you're not planning to fight, and have the camera zoom over to it and splash its name on the screen. The Titans were alright. The fight against the 2nd one was cool, flying around the whole island, and all that. The music was fine. As far as metal and metal-adjacent music goes, I'm more into thrash metal than metalcore, so this wasn't the religious experience for me that it was for others. I wasn't expecting the true final boss to be + - Ikaruga but I was down. Story, Writing, & Voice Acting: I enjoyed the story and the writing. Others have said that the little references to other things, like Angel Island, aren't really a substitute for good writing, and I agree. But my inner 15 year old Sonic lorebeast was still happy to see a Sonic game care about and acknowledge events from past games. A little thing, but I liked it. I played with the Japanese audio on, so I can't comment on the English voice cast's performance, but reading the thoughts of others here, I think I dodged a bullet. Kanemaru still sounds great. Only downside to this was + - the final boss is talking constantly, but there's no subs during it, so I had no idea what kind of dialog I was missing; I guess it speaking incomprehensibly at me added to it in a way? Also, given what you're doing during the fight, you wouldn't really be able to focus on reading subs anyway. Based on the ending, + - I'd be surprised if we don't get a sequel to this. Some big questions remain unanswered. We're told the Master Emerald drew the Chaos Emeralds to Earth, but not told why they have a relationship in the first place; is the Master Emerald also from space, and if not, what is the origin of its relationship with the Chaos Emeralds? Eggman is still on the Starfall Islands researching shit, and we still don't know what the "ZAP" thing means, which is what the post-credits scene ends with. The Freedom to Say "No": There are many things in this game that I didn't really care to engage with. And in an uncharacteristically forward-thinking move on Sonic Team's part, they largely gave me the freedom to simply not engage with those things. Don't want to engage in combat? Run away! Don't want to fight that Guardian? Run away! Need portal gears by some alternate means so you can still access Cyber Space? Want to bypass the need for portal gears and Cyber Space altogether? Explore, explore, explore. Or, even better, go fishing! The fishing mini-game was a godsend; you can exchange tokens you get from catching things for portal gears, vault keys, even the things needed for stat upgrades. And having to explore to find the portals to the fishing spots fed into the gameplay loop quite nicely. Part of the reason the cartography clicked for me on the 2nd Island was because I was trying to find the fishing spot. But this freedom to largely tell shit you don't care about to fuck off is something that 3D Sonic games have struggled with for decades, and I'm glad to see Sonic Team finally learning. Final Thoughts: Not sure what numerical score I'd give this, since I don't like giving things numerical scores, but it's no surprise to me that this is getting 7/10's. As far as open world games go, this is far from the best (let alone the best to come out this year). But as far as Unleashed-derived games go, this is really solid; best one since Generations, at least (which is an incredibly low bar, but still). I'm excited to see where they go with this.
