Updates 1 and 2 are fairly trivial items in the grand scheme of things (and do reek more than a little of "stuff that we ran out of time to put in before it shipped"), but Update 3 is a surprise and probably the most substantial piece of post-launch DLC that Sonic Team's done. That said: the fact it's free probably DOES mean they're just going to be reskins with maybe an extra move each, but you know what? They don't need more than that, that's how the classics did it. Really couldn't give 2 shits about more of the dreck storyline but eh
I was not expecting to wake up today and learn that this game was offering live-service content, especially after Sega and Sonic Team historically never offered DLC (despite pioneering the concept in Sonic Adventure). Like others have said, my cynical view is that this was content removed/held back from the main game with simple character reskins to be released as free DLC to drive interest but I'm really excited nevertheless. I'm guessing + - the new story takes place during the events of the game .
Sonic Unleashed did in fact have DLC , for Harder levels Technically Generations had that shitty pinball DLC Lost World had Zelda and Yoshi DLC Even Forces had Shadow Episode ….Sonic Team had better DLC history than i thought in fact
I wouldn’t call Episode Shadow DLC it’s practically bundled with the game. 06 also had DLC in the form of harder levels and those amigo stages. Unleashed’s was the most robust, in addition to its harder levels it had new acts, however some of them were retooled unfinished content. Generations had by far the worst dlc, and it would have been the perfect game for it (I always wanted another era consisting of levels from Sonic 3, Shadow, and Secret Rings).
I mean in terms of actual long term DLC support, yeah only Unleashed comes to mind -of course there is Mania but it's not Sonic Team so....-
Eh, most DLCs have always been small additions like bonus levels, modes, or character items. Full-fledged expansions, season passes, or live-service models with regular content drops have always been reserved for other games in the industry. Generations had the greatest potential for DLC but nothing was offered. I would have loved to pay money for extra classic or Adventure stages even if I don't support season passes.
This game must be doing quite well for Sonic Team to be doing an unprecedented amount of post-launch updates. I'm so used to them dropping games and running off to the next one. I guess I will have to pick this game up one day, huh?
+ - I wish they'd replace the final boss with something that matches Sonic's weird "help me titans" line that clearly suggests some grander plan than what we got. Mania plus replaced the Metal Sonic fight, but... I doubt they'd actually retcon the original final boss and put-in something better, right? Also, I hope the new story is more than just some reskins and new dialogue. The postcredits sort of imply an extension to the story after the game though. This was all probably planned from the beginning.
yeah, this is giving me the vibe that the game has exceeded their expectations by a lot. having the new characters (the harder, more intensive work) be in update 3 implies they haven't started work on that at all yet (or at least didn't start it in the period between going gold and release, like lots of DLC out there), and thus probably didn't plan it at all until the game did well. which makes me happy!! I never thought this game would be getting any post-release support outside of bug fixes.
That footage of Kronos with less pop-in is brilliant and I really hope someone releases a mod / code for it eventually. I mean... tbh Sonic Team should be the ones changing these values in an official patch (which may not be out of the question), but if they won't do it then perhaps someone in the community will share a solution. It's still not perfect, for example you can still see some of the signposts and other objects pop-in close to Sonic, but it's such a huge improvement.
As far as I’m aware, we do have some numbers from retail sources, like how it debuted 4th in the UK. I imagine it’s already a million seller at this point, if not a multi-million seller.
I believe assumed reports implied it already beat a rough estimate of Forces' 3 million launch sales within a matter of days, but we have no real records of any sort yet.
They gave Generations a 5 and Colors a 6, so EDGE's opinions on Sonic games is something I never jived with, lol. From the snippets of the actual review, they complain about how the combat is "button-mashy" (can't agree) with "overly-long health bars" (absolutely not, if anything they die too quick), but that also the skills have "tediously long animations" (they're 2 seconds at most and you can cancel them into other moves), To me, Frontiers' combat is a good example of the difference between a "button mashy" game and a game where button mashing "works" much like how never boosting in a Sonic game works.
The full livestream with Morio Kishimoto is up in case we have any Japanese speakers here who are willing to translate
Honestly, till now I wonder why they never capitalised on Generations' success. It was such a stupid move to not include more stages as part of a DLC. All we got was... pinball? It's so crazy to me.
I honestly don’t see how this game deserves less than a 5/10 even if you don’t like it. That score and Sterling’s 1.5 are ridiculous
I can understand to a degree, one look at the world can tell you that it wasn't really made for Sonic. They just made a generic world that feels like it was built for any other character then they slapped a bunch of rails and dash panels on top of it as a band-aid. In other words, it feels like something a team of amateurs would build rather than a team of professionals, and that's not something everyone can overlook even if the game still is fun. Combine that with the easy platforming/puzzle challenges, the draw distance issues, and the general lack of polish, and it's not hard to understand why some would be very critical.
Yeah, it's not some unforgivable sin that some people might genuinely not like this game, or in fact really not like it. Their gripes might not make the game a 3/10 on one's own personal scale, but it might on someone else's. A 1/10, a 3/10, a 5/10, etc. etc. mean different things to different people, which is one reason I think numerical scores are of way more limited importance than some people in this thread are regarding them as having (and one reason I didn't bother trying to give one, myself). I don't wanna say they're completely pointless, because they can be useful for the purpose of trying to quantify a critic's thoughts, which in turn can be useful for aggregating data, etc. Being able to quantify the reception to something has value; people rejoice when a thing they like or were looking forward to is well-received. But, again, it's an attempt to quantify someone's experience, and that's never going to be perfect or universal. Haven't seen Sterling's review or this new one that gave it a 3/10, but based on what people have said, I'd wager that Sterling's was probably a disingenuous stab at quantifying their experience. The other one though? While the combat wasn't nearly as tedious as I had expected, I think it's perfectly possible and reasonable for someone to walk away with the thoughts so described above. So I'm not as willing to immediately disregard it as disingenuous just because it's lower than most.
