The Sonic Frontiers *SPOILER* Thread (With Unmarked Spoilers)

I didn't hate the story. I thought it was fine but there were missed opportunities all over it.

And the funny thing about references is that once you remind the audience of something you invite the comparison. Defeating titans and accidentally unsealing an ancient evil that corrupts the protagonist in the process just reminded me of something that did the idea better, and the ways that game took to execute the idea of a satisfying way. I'm not saying Sonic had to die or anything like that, but Shadow of The Colossus takes steps to make you feel the impact of that corruption both within the narrative and mechanically. Would it have seriously hurt this game to do something similar if they were going to put effort into copying the idea anyway?

The same is true of Sage. She does remind me very much of Rei, and I was disappointed because the execution by comparison is so sloppy! Funny, how that works.

 

I mean, if we want to argue similar concepts being 'stolen', then Shadow of the Colossus stole the idea from Ocarina of Time's concept for Ganon, before they decided it was unfeasible for the Nintendo 64 and reused it in Super Mario Galaxy...

 

I never said it stole from Shadow of the Colossus so I don't know why you are using quotation marks!

It's fine that Frontiers is copying Shadow of the Colossus. My problem is that it doesn't do anything interesting with the ideas and even downgrades the titan boss fights compared to the original colossi fights.

 

Who in the--

Who is actually playing Sonic Frontiers and thinking about how this entirely different game did this vaguely similar plot "better?" How do you even quantify that? Especially when earlier back, you guys talked about how they "didn't get it" because Sonic didn't get possessed and died, like that's inherently necessary for the story to be good or the story beats to make sense.

There are so many stories exactly like this. I can use that to describe Attack on Titan of all things. I can use that to describe Gurren Lagann!

The inspiration is abundantly clear, but you do know they're still fundamentally different characters of different stories?

I do not believe you sat there thinking "oh, Evangelion did this character better! Maybe if Sonic accidentally groped her breast--"

You just kept asserting they're the same. And not only do I massively agree that these boss battles are not interesting, but huhh?? How are they a downgrade? They're not--arrrgh!

How do you even quantify that??

 

I personally saw Knuckles' disposition in that regard to be a natural extrapolation of the fact he is a warrior from a warrior clan and his main shtick in Sonic 3 was tactical in that he always had to use his knowledge of the environment to get the jump on Sonic. I dunno. It seems like a natural fit to me.

 

Well I'm actually happy the parallels to Rei and Gendo are superficial and actually heartwarming.

Expected from a character who has a broken eggshell for an haircut.

I don't have any illusions who's the main target demografic.

I whole hearted belive they stroke the right balance after the meta era swinged the pendulum too hard.

 

For me, when I think of Archie Sonic, it's pretty much only Flynn's stories that come to mind, with a few exceptions. He was the lead writer for Archie Sonic from 2006 to 2017. I was a very young kid when he took up the mantle and those are the stories I read growing up. I think it's kind of a shame that a lot of the discourse around Archie is dominated by Penders - a lot of really talented people got their start (and more) in the Sonic franchise at Archie. Tyson Hesse, Ian Flynn, Evan Stanley, Tracey Yardley, Ben Bates, Adam Bryce Thomas... Flynn's Archie stuff is pretty wild in how he consistently could juggle so many characters and plot threads and the progression of each character didn't feel rushed or incoherent. I liked that he had the freedom to pull from long forgotten, disparate elements of Sonic as a franchise and just mash them together to make something cool, even after the reboot. Brought back Breezie from AoStH and gave us a tournament arc adaptation of Sonic: The Fighters like 20 years after the game came out with Bean as comic relief. One of the last things Ian did before Archie cancelled the license was incorporate Sonic's moveset from Sonic and the Black Knight into Antoine's (cowardly boy turned cool underdog) fighting style and have him find a magical sword and give us a cool fight scene against a new rival just for him (art was unfortunately never finished, but still looks baller):

Spoiler

Spoiler

Frontiers' story definitely isn't Flynn's best showing. But I'm hoping that he gets brought back for the next game and they give him more freedom with the scenario, or at least, spend more time making sure the pacing of the scenario they set is tightened up. I hope that characters except for Sonic get to play a more active role. I wanna see Tails or Knuckles or anybody else do something and think "that's so friggin COOL!", like I felt about Super Sonic in this game. And I hope the interactions sound a bit more natural. I hope I was able to articulate why Ian Flynn has goodwill among certain parts of the fanbase for the users here at Sonic Retro who haven't read the comics, either Archie or IDW. I've read better from him and I hope this first foray into game writing is just him getting used to the process, and what we see in the future is more robust.

 

Whether or not Frontiers is actively ripping off something doesn't matter. People can't help with what they're reminded of. @Laura's point isn't "The corruption scene is bad because they didn't copy from Shadow of the Colossus enough", but "The corruption scene is bad because it's a lot of build up to something that's quickly resolved"

When I watched my friend played, we thought there was gonna be a brief part of the game where you play as other characters to save Sonic (kinda like in 06). I think the idea is that it's supposed to represent Sonic's friendship: first he saves his buds, and his buds save him. But a video game tells its story best when there's integration with the gameplay. Without there being a change in gameplay to go along with Sonic being saved (such as controlling his friends or having a new "corrupted" super form or whatever), it just feels kinda "meh". I'm not sure why Laura is getting jumped for these complaints...most people agree that the game's final chunks are pretty flaccid and lame. On that note:



If you don't feel like watching:

PROS
1. The references (though he felt it was layed on too thick at times)
2. The fishing
3. The movement
4. Exploring a 3D world
5. The character interactions
6. SEGA trying something new

CONS
1. The art design
2. The final two islands
3. The plot, felt repetitive compared to something like SA2
4. The upgrade system is poorly balanced (such as the Rings stat)
5. The Cyber-Spaces are decent but are way too easy clear all their missions

In short: "I didn't love or hate it, but I kinda liked it"

 

Oh, I agree but that is a classic Ian-ism to be fair. Similar thing happened with the Metal Virus Saga in IDW. Didn't ruin the game for me though.

I can't believe I never noticed that. Omg.

 

The problem is the comparison itself was shallow, and for some reason it was framed that the plot point resolution was bad because it wasn't the exact same as Shadow of the Colossus (Sonic Team "didn't get it," or something). We were already argu-- DISCUSSING the plot point on its own merits.

I was arguing that the plot point resolved well enough for what it is, with not many other alternatives for its resolution besides a massive gameplay shake-up which would be cool but very likely will not actually play out well.

Having to play the other characters would be nice if they were previously playable but then... what would happen to the corruption plot line? And so on.

 

I've developed a minor theory regarding the game's development and the leaks. I think it's likely the earliest leaks of the game (at least up to the December announcement trailer) took place on the early version of Kronos Island where it's still combined with Ouranos, and the boss they fought was Giganto. Here's my evidence to back up my theory:

1.) The early leaks describe a boss in a "foggy forest", and they describe it as a giant colossus you climb up. The only boss you climb all the way up in this manner is Giganto. I also remember one person on Twitter who played the game early say this, but I don't remember who exactly it was.

Spoiler

2.) Probably the most damning part of this: alongside the early Kronos Island model are some early object layouts. According to DeaTh on Twitter who found them, one of them places Giganto in the middle of the forest on Ouranos, the same place Supreme appears in the final game. https://twitter.com/DeaThProj/status/1591117410412941313


This isn't really relevant to anything being discussed right now, but I just thought it was interesting.

 

The idea that they just straight up couldn't make a fourth island in time / money is also a pretty likely outcome, yeah.

 

Basically everything about the final island is unfinished besides the assets it had. Sage reusing the Amy memory tokens, nothing but Kronos music, all of the Guardians are palette swaps, no unique puzzles whereas the previous islands typically introduced at least one or two new gimmicks, no minigames for story progression, all of your progression Emeralds being entirely Vaults until the last two for plot reasons, not even any intro as Sonic just teleports from Rhea offscreen or something..

And that isn't even getting into how easy and unusual Supreme feels as a cap off, or that the only budget The End seemed to get was entirely for the QTE cutscene, because the Ikaruga feels like interns putting together a cool tribute under time duress.

 

Unlike a lot of other people, I do not believe "restrictions" are or were really Ian's issue. A lot of the issues I see in Frontiers are more just telltale elements of his usual writing I notice with his work in general. The only thing I will say is I can tell he wasn't involved in the voice direction, which is something I would very much like to see addressed to some extent. There were a lot of moments I could tell what Ian was going for with a line read despite it not being reflected in the actual finished product.

 

It is a shame that Sonic Team keeps getting done in like this. I can’t with any authority speculate on whether it’s unchecked ambition or a lack of time/budget/resources that is the main culprit for this but it seems like both this and Forces had a lot of groundwork laid out before the bulk of things was done in crunch time. It’s a miracle this game’s even come together at much as it has and released to great commercial success. I really hope this encourages SEGA to give Sonic Team whatever they need to be able to make the next game without compromise. I doubt that’ll solve all our problems, some of which do seem to be a product of design, but this series deserves better than unfinished release after unfinished release. Since 06, I’d say only about half of the mainline Sonic games have been able to deliver the breadth and depth of their vision, those being Unleashed, Colours, Mania and fucking Lost World of all things.

 

I feel like we have this conversation every game. Sure, deadlines are tough, but at some point you have to learn to work within your limitations, whatever those may be. Sonic Team needs to stop overscoping on every project.

 

I mean the scale of what they try to accomplish isn't even that unusual. Generations was made in the better part of a year and Classic Sonic was an overscope because he wasn't intended originally, but this sort of issue has happened ever since Sonic 3 & Knuckles cut itself in half for a McDonald's toy deadline and had a rebooted development that messed up time schedules.

Sonic Team needs more than ever better management and a larger staff. More budget is effectively necessity by paycheck rather than inherently to go into the game itself, but the ideas games like Forces and Frontiers had would've been possible for various other developers out there to accomplish; this feels like a development issue, not a "Sega really underbudgets their games" thing.

Hell, the RGG Studios could probably use Frontiers and pre-existing game assets to have a better development consistency than Sonic Team, by the two team's established track records of consistency over the past nearly 20 years. Sonic Team in general is just all kinds of fudged and needs new direction badly, even if Kishimoto has to move onto greener pastures after setting the stage for their future.

.. now I just want an RGG Studio spinoff game like they said they wanted to do. Would be a great opportunity with what Frontiers' ending set up.

 

I wanted Sage to have her own memory token but she just has Amy's memory token

 

I took this image a couple days ago and wanted to share it here because I thought it was extremely funny that the game doesn't have any checks for something like this potentially happening.

The second one is a fake, its only the model, you can run right through it and there is no collision or behaviors. It's simply the model loaded into the world overlooking you from the mountains. He also persists through the boss fight which makes it pretty confusing when your flying around.