There are a ton of games that despite massive budgets with tons of money and massive staffing numbers had content cut and planned things taken out...Halo Infinite and Shenmue are perfect examples. I'm enjoying the game despite all its flaws and that's Its far better and more fun than something like Death Stranding, which while I would say is a better looking game and a game that looks to have had a bigger budget made by a massive team Its just an utterly dull and boring walking sim with even more empty worlds than Sonic Frontiers. That's what so nice about Frontiers its fun to play, something missing a lot of game IMO
I kinda liked that graves puzzle. I thought it was oddly clever with how it requires you to set up things in advance. But I'm also a massive puzzle nerd.
I appreciate puzzles, and when I finally take the time to clear it I will assuredly respect it more than now. It is neat in design, but also heavily detached from Sonic as a whole. That said, I'd undoubtedly resent having to do it in something more fitting like a Zelda until clearing it by blind luck.
I perfectly understand why you didn't like the puzzle. Just remarking how my perspective lead me to be pleasantly surprised by it. I was expecting there to be some kind of skip, like many modern games have, but there wasn't any.
And are you saying that Sonic Frontiers is an example of this? Because if it isn't, then you should then understand that more personnel would be a help in the next game, which is what we were actually talking about. Again, you seem to be having this debate from the perspective of whether the game is good, when all I'm saying is that I think there was a vision for the endgame that was limited by something other than the development pipeline randomly suddenly turning rotten after the third island. If you have a better explanation, we're all happy to hear it.
Put me in the camp that really, really does not mind puzzles in Sonic games. The puzzles in Frontiers have you slowing for mere seconds to do very simple little tasks, and give you two small rewards for your efforts. They're acceptable breaks from Frontiers brand of homing attack and grind rail spam platforming. They work well in the gameplay loop. I especially like the ones where you havr to launch spheres into targets. It's very forgiving with your aim, but still requires you to put a bit of effort into using Sonic's abilities in a way that you normally wouldn't. The worst would be the parry challenges, simply because parrying in Frontiers is a completely passive thing. Once at the end of each island you'll get a slightly longer puzzle, which again I just can't bring myself to have a problem with most of the time. The laser puzzle only took a couple of minutes and could be brute forced, the crane puzzle was barely as puzzle and the pinball... Yeah, that one was too long. Perfectly fine though, and actually the game probably would have done well to include a few more pinball tables with different layouts across the islands if the goal requirements came down a lot. The hacking minigame was even fine as a short diversion and nothing more...
You seem to think that throwing money and more staff at a project is the answer. I'm simply saying I don't think thats always the case, just look at Halo Infinite for that. I've played quite a few open world games with dull lifeless environments to walk around in, like in Death Stranding and Zelda: BOTW. Sure it looks like stuff was cut out, but that's the case with a lot of games where they simply didn't have the time or what was planned didn't work out like hoped and needed to be dropped. These days they make into a sequel or DLC. When I played Destiny 2 and finished Destiny 2 for the 1st time I felt a lot of content was cut out and was that it for the game ? I'm actually having fun in Frontiers, which is more than I can say about a lot of openworld games to be fair and that's what counts.
I fucking hate those and for the life of me don't know how to do the one on the last island with five rings.
I think I had to do one of the ones on Ares a few times because the bugger was in such an awkward position.
Lol, okay. I found them to be straight forward. The spheres travel in a straight line with no arc when you hit them, so all that you have to do is line up Sonic before hitting the homing attack. Don't just jump into them because it's far more difficult to line Sonic up that way. But do jump before using the homing attack (in particular for the lower targets) so that you get the right angle. The angle that Sonic hits the sphere is what determines everything. What's so difficult about the last one? The game is generous with the time limits, or at least I thought so.
No I'm not. I'm saying I think the state of Frontiers's endgame is the result of it not having enough of something. It could be money, it could be staff, and it could be time, and more of any of those things could potentially result in a better game, but hiring people is the thing Sonic Team is doing right now. But I'm not talking about those games. You seem to be saying Sonic Team could be a similar case, but it also could be literally anything else. Unless you actually can explain what the similarities and differences are in what you know about the creation of these games other than your subjective opinion on the results, I don't think you really have much of an argument here. That tends to result in something being underdeveloped, a problem that more people doing work can theoretically solve. It's not like you need an extremely strong artistic vision to make the platforming sequences we see in this game, no, it's purely on functionality. Maybe they needed a strong vision for the Super Sonic version of The End, but whatever that would have been, it would've probably come from the same people who designed every other boss fight, so it's probably not a lack of faith in their own work that did it but the work simply not being far along enough close to release for it to be included in the released game. You keep making these "well I enjoy it and that's what matters" responses to those of us talking about the things that we wish were better about the game. And like, yeah, your opinion is the only one that needs to count to you, but this is a place for discussion! And I've given you a myriad of responses to my point, that "it's easy to see why people would think Sonic Team needs more people", which I've been talking about this whole time. But it still feels like you're really not paying attention to what I'm saying, hence your only real defense has been "it might not work and I like the game anyway". Which is just a very weak argument, I'm sorry to say.
You didn’t even finish the game, so you are not getting what people are actually talking about here, my advice is just finishing the game then come back, after that you will get what people are actually talking about, whether you agree or not is another matter, but at least you will be on the same page, from your current perspective however, what people say here doesn’t make sense. And even SEGA itself actually agrees that it needs more staff! They opened a new studio in Sapporo, Japan to help develop SEGA games including Sonic franchise, they even recently, this week in fact, started recruitment for Sonic Team! So it’s not really fruitful to say “they don’t need bigger staff anyway “ ….when they are in fact actually getting bigger staff for their next projects cause they know they actually need bigger staff.
The puzzles are harmless, but I don't think you lose anything by getting rid of them either. They're all pretty mindless and generous. The only one that really annoyed me was the Grave puzzle.
Why do I need to finish the game?. I've put far more time into Frontiers than I did into Zelda or Death Stranding and even Elden Ring . A recent game that felt unfished, need more money more time and staff and where you didn't need to finish it to find that out,was Saints Row V. To me Sonic isn't in that ball park at all. Its not perfect, but its a great 1st step and a great game to boot. I would Sonic Frontir biggest issue is that it look a little cheap at times and not up there with Death Stranding graphics, which is kind of a letdown from a big AAA title from SEGA Yeah, sure all studios need more staff for games these days. I remember saying that decades back on SegaBits fourm when Capcom was opening 2 new studios in Japan and SEGA Japan was looking to mobiles. I'm loving the game, infact I'll go as far to say along with Plague: Requiem. it's the best game I played all year.
Cause what they are talkin about are things that are literally at the end of the game, they don't even talk about what are you currently experiencing, the beginning of the game feels fully realized so you don't understand where is the issue, i totally get that, i was the same. Hell. i actually finished the game and still loved it, it's really the most fun i had in any game this year, yes enjoyed it more than elden ring, however, i totally get the issues people are talking about at the end, you need to see it for yourself, acknowledging that something was missing doesn't mean you can't still enjoy -and even love- the whole experience, i know i did. It's like people complaining about the 9th Star Wars movie, while you are still in like the 3rd or 4th SW movie, sure it's part of the larger thing, but you are not even talking about the same thing at this point.
I think the point is more that you need to finish the game to see specifically why people think that a good chunk of the game ended up getting cut for some reason. If you've gotten to the last two islands Spoiler you'll know that they're literally just extensions of the first island. It frankly makes no sense that they'd tell you they have five islands when they've basically only got three. I was expecting new themes/biomes/etc. but we just simply didn't get it. It seems pretty clear to me that they had more they wanted to do but just didn't have the time, staff, and/or resources to get it done. I'd also say the Egg Memos being hidden in the fishing minigame seems indicative of running out of time/staff/resources too - it doesn't really make a lot of sense for those to be hidden away there. Somebody online said they thought they might've been originally intended to be part of the scattered Eggman buildings around the islands (maybe the plan was to go inside and discover the memos naturally, or something along those lines.) Also, if you haven't finished the game, you won't have played Spoiler the final boss. The one on the island is frankly way less impressive than the other island bosses, and the final final boss in hard mode is a completely different style of gameplay that doesn't make... sense. At all. It really reeks of running out of time/money/resources - the final two islands of the game really feel like they're missing *something*, and if you haven't gotten there you just won't understand what people are talking about. IDK, I just think you're being a little obstinate and willfully blind when you're arguing here.
bit of a random thought but was anyone else surprised by just how unimportant those towers actually were in the final game? I remember the original Game Awards reveal trailer for this game ended on a dramatic close up of one of the towers so I thought for sure they'd be important to the game. Unless there's some kind of lore thing I skipped over, it feels like they kind of just exist for the sake of it.
In terms of the clear unfinished nature of the game. Spoiler You can make a case for Ouranous being adapted into a new island. It is seperated from Kronos and is technically it's own island in Frontiers. They just originally planned for it to be Kronos and it's outline can still be seen in the game at very high altitudes. But Rhea is so jarring. It's literally just the top part of Kronos. Baffling. The below is me standing on the top of the waterfall of Rhea looking at Kronos. Just so weird. The game calls Rhea it's own island but it's just the top of Kronos in game. Not attempted to hide it. And I actually think it makes both islands play worse because of the barriers which restrict you from playing each. I think they must have just run out of time making the automated challenges? It would have been really weird if they did have a bunch of automated challenges for Rhea and then just decided to remove them and adapt the island into a dull and tedious tower climb. I think @jubbalub is surely correct in hypothesising that Kronos+Rhea+Ouranous was the original map which the earliest leakers played. But who knows if the automated challenges had begun to be made at that point.
EDIT: oh shit this isn't the spoiler thread Spoiler I like Rhea in isolation. The tower challenge is a nice mixup of the usual formula, it lets all the big lore/story moments break up the gameplay marathon, and the music track is one of my favorites in the game. The problem is how it clashes with the rest of the game. It's hard to ignore the compromise, that they couldn't cut it off Kronos cleanly despite doing fine with Ouranos, that neither of the last 2 islands got even rudimentary aesthetic alterations (DESPITE A GOOD ONE BEING IN THE GAME ALREADY), and the visible Kronos and empty areas make it all so obvious. If they'd simply whipped up a simplistic rocky island with some snow or something to house the towers and nothing else, I'd have thought Rhea was maybe less cool, but it'd feel way more cohesive within the game proper, and Ouranos also being green could sorta be sold as an artistic choice, like "bookending" (note: this would still be lame) or something. I think ideally, if modding gets to this point, we'd populate Rhea with normal platforming challenges and such, and while there would still be no emeralds or titan, the memory tokens would be for Eggman (you could utilize the egg memos as sort of pre-recorded cyberspace stuff to bring the Eggman/Sage dynamic into more focus!) and the towers and dramatic music would only rise up at the end of the island.
