Oh wow? I never knew this! The more you know Thank you. In regards to Frontiers, it has truly helped my mental health. I haven't felt so happy playing a game in the longest. I love it dearly, and I hope others that play it share my joy with it too.
I personally think there's a big difference between not liking something because it doesn't appeal to your taste or expectations of the franchise and not liking something because you think it is poorly made. Obviously it's a matter of interpretation if something is poorly made, but it's a big distinction in my mind. I think your Batman example is good. I'm not a huge fan of Batman as a media. I'm a real casual, I've seen the Nolan films and that's pretty much it. I did actually like The Batman film a lot though, but I think you are probably correct that it doesn't really do a great deal new. I did like the angle it had on Batman realising his vigilantism is not really accomplishing as much as institutional reform. But I have no idea if that is a trope or theme in Batman media. So yeah, I'd say that while I like that film, I wouldn't contend with your point there. However, I would still argue that the Batman is well made, despite not being groundbreaking. The acting is great (especially Patterson), the cinematography is maybe a bit overdone in the dark and moody aesthetic but I still think it's well made. The writing is good despite some corny moments. I wouldn't say Frontiers is well made at all. And that's the difference. Let's use Persona as another example. I'm a big Persona fan. But I haven't played many SMT games and I know that the hardcore SMT fans aren't a huge fan of the direction Persona went in after Persona 4. Making the series more JPOP in aesthetic and casual. Now I know SMT fans have some criticisms of SMT5 but there's broad consensus that SMT5 is more traditional and what they went out of the series than the direction Persona went into. I played SMT5 and appreciate what the game does. It has a great combat system. I can understand why people prefer SMT as 'more pure' but I personally think that Persona is much more enjoyable. But SMT5 is certainly a very good game and I can understand their point of view. Nevertheless, I would argue that Persona 4 and 5 are a lot more enjoyable and even more well designed because of how they fuse the storytelling, social sim, and combat into a cohesive whole. I don't think Frontiers fits into this pattern. Sonic has had games which I think are very different to the classic games which I would still call good. I think Colors and Generations are good games. Adventure 1 and 2 are very flawed but are decent. Frontiers is just really badly made. And I think if people want to say it's a great game they have to actually defend it substantially like I've done very briefly above. And to be blunt, I haven't seen many defences of this game which have much substance. I'll concede on the points that Frontiers has more attention to worldbuilding and character legacy since I know everyone will bring that up. If you like Sonic to have a dark aesthetic, then sure. It's nice to have a 3D open environment. But outside of those defences, I haven't seen much. I do remember @Aerosol talking about Frontiers allowing you to approach automated challenges from multiple angles and sequence break the medallion challenges. And while that is fun design, I still think it's anchored in the weaknesses on designing a game around Forces style automation with no variety. I also know what @Aerosol is saying with Frontiers using less automation in controls. I mean actually I think that's very debatable in the cyberspace levels but in the open world I think it's a fair point. But I don't think it's a great point in the game's favour. Pretty low bar. I agree with @Starduster that Sonic turns well, but that's only one aspect of his base movement which I think is otherwise really bad (as I've previously argued). I think a lot of people have said Sonic controls amazingly and the best in the series and haven't really justified that claim. I would genuinely like to see more robust defence of Frontiers because I really haven't seen much and @Aerosol I do genuinely want to understand why people like this game even if it doesn't seem the case.
Respectfully, I think you should give up trying. No-one is going to ever convince me League of Legends is fun and it's one of the biggest games on the planet. Can't you just accept you don't like the game and move on to something else more worth your time? Nobody is particularly entitled to "prove" to you why Frontiers is worthy of praise, especially when people like the game for precisely the reasons you don't. You can't claim to be that interested in a robust defence when your every counter is some variation of "I get what you're saying, but I still think it's shit". I get that it may feel like you're missing something that's seems obvious to everyone else but...you're not. You're not missing anything. I see these discussions constantly going round in circles and I know I'm a bit bored of it, though. So again, and I mean this sincerely with the utmost respect, I have to ask why you don't just move on?
Everyone knows how frustrating it is to fall off the course in Mario Kart or when speed is too overwhelming, so it becomes uncontrollable. Sonic Frontiers is surprisingly accessible in that regard. Playing it is almost like listening to a monologue about how to solve all the problems within the series, which is kind of interesting in itself. And it's more honest about its flaws. Despite its speedy nature, you don't need to have superhuman reflexes to have fun with it. That sounds like a fun role playing idea.
Hmmmmm Some time in the past weeks, when i beat the game, i caught up to the unread posts in this thread, reading impressions etc, i had the urge to reply to some old posts by then, but i was like "you don't need to bother with old posts, just let it go", then i got lazy and forgot about the whole thing but now...i kinda feel these recent discussions led to them again and even repeating those points, i have those old taps open, so i apologize for random old quotes Since when Sonic games have Honey moon phases lol ? if anything, it's always the opposite, what's the reverse of a "honey moon phase" called? Like for example, Sonic 4, that game had the slinkiest reception since the footage of it was leaked, reception was so bad they had to actually delay it -and make actual 2 levels for consoles instead of that tilting cart thing-....the game released and was met with a strong backlash -with fans- as if it was the worst thing ever to grace the franchise -well, not really, but you get the picture-, somehow this game was well-received with the reviewers at the time while fans generally hated it, you would think the opposite would happen, point is: fans hated it. Yet somehow in the recent pages i have seen some posts that are like "well.....it was better than 2D stages in Frontiers huh" "that game was coherent in design and consistent" , things like that Unleashed had it's flaws apparent before release too, i remember all that, remember the general impressions and feeling of the game when it released, it's flaws is obvious for everyone, yet a lot of people actually loved it and appreciated it since release too, even with all it's misgivings People may claim that Colors had a strong Honey Moon phase and it's "bad" now, but really, all it's problems and issues were also apparent day 1, people were discussing it since then, but? the game was still well-received, the game now is STILL well-received, roughly scoring the same as the original after all those years and only held back by the glitches and remaster issues, given how usually even good remasters score less than original releases by a lot -like Skyward Sword that scored more than 10 scores less-, i would say this means the game held well after all those years What usually happens is that people who love a game moves on, while some people who had issues with some game from day 1, still talk about it years later, creating the impressions that "maybe people are getting more down on it", when usually that's not the case. The opposite can also happens, people dislike a game move on, while those who loved it may feel more comfortable about it years later and so create an image that people "appreciate this game a lot now" , like Unleashed for example Adventure 1 and 2 are very rough games, yet? people still love them all the same more than 20 years later despite all their issues, you would think people would hate those games now, or "recognize them for their poor quality"... but as recent as.... ....today actually, some people claim they are actually decent. Frontiers as a game is better than both. So that's why i don't get, if someone think they are all bad, or they are all good or decent, i would get it But somehow defending adventure games as "decent with flaws" while somehow Frontiers is "really badly made", i will never get. even fans of Adventure games will be like "ok actually only half/third of those games are any good, rest are flawed/bad" Worst of all? Unlike Frontiers, you can't really skip most of the bad stuff, don't like Knuckles/Rouge segments? too bad, you gotta play with busted radar on really big level that you will easily get lost in it for 10+ minutes if you are lucky Don't like fishing? too bad, you are forced to play them in order to finish the story and face the final boss, and it's bad/boring fishing mini-game unlike....say....Sonic Frontiers ,which not only had the better fishing minigame, but it's also both totally optional, and also very rewarding and actually help you progress greatly through the game if you chose to engage with it ....i could go on and on and i am kinda rambling here but the point is clear, those games are flawed, i am not gonna pretend one is decent while the other is so bad and terrible. especially when statically speaking, the percentage of what is generally considered "good portion of the game" in Adventure games are less than 50% if i am being generous, while in Frontiers, it's most of the game, the game even allows you to skip the "bad portions" if you think they are bad, only thing that is mandatory is the pinball minigame with it's bad physics and clipping, and even then, it comes down to luck, for some people finish it quickly and don't even think it's an issue I find it even more embarrassing that you think people opinions about videogames is "embarrassing", especially when they actually articulated well why they think that, it's not rocket science, people like it when their fast blue rat can be precisely controlled while maintaining speed, go really fast, can turn easily on a dime, it's not slippery, have lot of different movement options and large moveset that allows you to perform a lot of different things , is it really hard to see why anyone would think it's the best Sonic ever controlled? no i don't think so, at it's worst it's still like Top 3 best control for an official sonic game, easily "but the 2D levels control sucks!" well, the control in the special stages in games like Sonic CD, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, are really different, actually different physics altogether, they may even suck, but it's obviously not what people talk about when they praise those games for it's controlling That post and other posts like it are not "judgmental" or "meanie", it's straight up childish and disrespectful , basically reducing other opinions as worthless, like why would anyone would choose to engage in a discussion with someone who already presents their opinion as the one truth and any other opinion is "emberrasing"? talk about condescending attitude. It's totally fine to hate a videogame, think it's bad or flawed, i have no issue with that, a lot of people actually expressed that with no issues. But it's important to recognize that... at the end of the day....videogames are meant to be enjoyed, if someone enjoyed it? thinks it's the best thing ever? actually having fun? that what matters the most. i personally have some games that i really don't enjoy, or even hate -including some recently popular AAA game-, do i ridicule the opinions of anyone who love them? no, good for them! there is nothing embarrassing about expressing your love for a videogame and the enjoyment it gave to you, clearly those games are doing something right, i can even recognize what they are doing right for others, while simultaneously recognize what i don't personally like about them that make me dislike them, it's not hard. ...... i do feel embarrassed by all the i have written tho, i feel sorry for whoever will bother to read all that.
I don't think any arguments, no matter how detailed or well spoken, will change your mind on the game. It just doesn't work for you. I get it. I've been there. I've had movies, shows, and games that I've tried to get into because they got a lot of praise by people into the same type of media I am and I didn't get it. And no matter how much I argued my points against the works quality, it didn't change any minds. The game just isn't for you. It's a good thing you gave it a shot and spoke from your own personal opinion on the game rather than let someone else decide for you if it's good or not. But we'll just be talking in circles again if we try and convince each other to change view points. I hope you try out the DLC next year and enjoy it but I think with the current point of things there's nothing else to add.
@MH MD I think you’re being overly generous with regards to the cyberspace controls/physics. In the vast majority of games with special stages, the entire format of play is different. In Frontiers, it’s the same core gameplay, just with linear levels, so the complaints rise on two counts: First, going from speed and fluidity of the open zone to feeling like you’re running into the wind in cyberspace (particularly in the 2D stages) is jarring and there’s really no excuse for it. I do think the stages are at least designed around this, given how much they break when using mods that enable open zone physics in cyberspace, but I still think they have bad game feel and the potential for fun is really handicapped as a result. Second, this series has done it better before, with regards to physics and control. Of course there’s Generations and the original release of Colours, but I’d say even Forces handles better in 2D than Frontiers’ cyberspace does. I don’t agree with everything Laura’s saying and I certainly don’t agree with the way she’s saying some of it (referring to people defending the controls as embarrassing), but I’m not going to pretend she doesn’t have some absolutely valid points on the game. This isn’t directed at any one person in particular, but I fear things have gotten rather tribal with regards to this game. Not that we can’t disagree on things and I definitely understand and identify with the desire to go to bat for something one enjoys, but I feel like there’s a trend of assuming that, if there’s someone who doesn’t agree with a given viewpoint on the game, they must be wrong wholesale, and I think it really harms our ability to have a frank discussion on how what I believe to be a fun game can be improved. Also I feel inclined to disagree with the idea of Frontiers having a worse fishing mini game. Personally, I think the problem with Big in Adventure was always that he’s mandatory. The intrinsic mechanics of his fishing are pretty engaging, imho. Meanwhile, Frontiers’ fishing doesn’t ask for much from the player and is largely an excuse to disengage one’s brain for a bit, which is fine and works in the context of Frontiers, but just isn’t as engaging as Adventure fishing, by design or otherwise.
While I do think the open world controls pretty great for the most part (I think only SA1 beats it), the Unleashed stages play terribly with the new, momentum-less air controls, but the Adventure 2 style stages actually play pretty well.
Yes, i admit i was being overly generous in regards to 2D stages, but for 2 main reasons that i didn’t explain clearly : 1- Cause how optional they are and having the choice to actually ignore them and continue the main game -that’s where the comparison to Special Stages comes from- , sure Gen/Mania did it better in the past, but those were actually main parts of thier games /the whole game, they obviously had more effort and care put into them, as it should 2- and this is a weird one: cyberspace levels have some quirks that don’t work in the open zones, they feel unintentional -obviously they are-, yet they make those levels way more fun once you get the hang of it, once i learned about stomp boost / homing attack cancel boost /magnet boost, actually attempting those level turned into a BLAST and really fun! Especially when i had such negative first impressions of them at first, for a good reason , i feel it’s really weird that the levels with the obviously worse controls also have some of the most fun techs to perform and execute in the whole game, did they exist because the worse control and physics…somehow? I dunno, but i am glad they are there
I never took notice of it because Sonic Adventure 2 is a Shonen action adventure and villains having crazy transformations during the final fight is one of the hallmarks of the genre. DBZ and Yu Yu Hakusho were very popular series at the time and both of them did this to great effect. Lots of narrative games like Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and Final Fantasy 7 did this as well. The boils felt like adding immersion for me because they said this guy was the prototype and it always comes off as straining just to breath so it being sickly wasn't out there for me either. It might be silly if you dissect it but it works in the moment and thats all that matters.
1. The Cyberspace levels are optional by technicality. You can find an infinite number of keys in open zone, but it comes down to RNG and will take you forever. Nobody wants to run in circles with the cyloop hundreds of times to collect enough keys to unlock all of the balls. Or you can go fishing, which effectively works as means for bypassing the entire game apart from fighting the Titans and finding purple coins with which to fish (although just one Starfall event will see you with ample coins for the rest of the game). Case in point, Cyberspace is something that you have to go out of your way to avoid. Framing it as "optional" when there are so many Cyberspace levels and when the entire gameplay loop encourages you to enter them is a bit disingenuous. If you want to term Cyberspace as optional, you're in turn calling fishing basically mandatory and Guardian fights pointless, because all they do is reward you with Cyberspace access. 2. The tech involved in Cyberspace speed running isn't intentional. But also, the same tech could still exist even if the physics and controls were better. It could be both fun to play the intended way and through exploits. YMMV, but I can't look past glaring flaws that make a game unpleasant to play because there are loop-holes to circumvent them. It's especially bad for Cyberspace because it lifts so many levels from multiple different games and said levels in said games are actually fun there. If I want them to be fun in Frontiers, I have to contort the gameplay to string together a bunch of unintentional tech. It's inexcusable that Cyberspace is just so broken to me when the foundations already existed in so many ways.
@Blue Blood theres at least one level I think works better in Frontiers than it’s original incarnation - that fucking Spagonia lap level from Unleashed. In Unleashed that level was just broken with a frame rate that made me want to scream. One thing I’ll give to Frontiers cyberspace though, the general control layout (overall, not perfect though). Mapping boost to a trigger and putting homing attack back to X so the double jump can be retained was perfect. Now if only the drop dash was activated differently and they gave him the spin dash back in 2D via down + A
You mean Cyberspace 3-5? Rooftop Run act 2 Unleashed's mini acts were never particularly great, especially the 2D ones. It transitions "well" to Frontiers cause basically all you're doing for the entire level is timing homing attacks and QTEs. Frontiers' complete inability to preserve momentum when you let go of the analogue stick works in the levels favour. It feels like a filler level in both games. One forgettable level that arguably works slightly better because of Frontiers' unfavourable quirks doesn't really change the fact that the majority of the stages are worse because of said quirks. And I'm also not going to pretend that Unleashed has perfect controls and physics, because for a start we all know just how slippery movement in that game was. But the controls and physics in Frontiers cyberspace are so egregious in the first place and so much further from ideal than Unleashed was that I genuinely don't know how anybody at Sonic Team gave them the green light.
Oh I don’t think either is very fun, just felt it went from completely broken to “well least it works.” Just wanted to play devils advocate lol overall the stages feel better in their original games… although for me the SA2 stages are debatable (gonna get torn apart for that one lol but SA2 has a fair amount of jank to me I’m not a huge fan. I basically like City Escape kinda and the idea of pyramid cave) I was very disappointed to see they brought that level back, just like how I was sad to see Mania brought back the Death Egg Act 1 mini boss back. Ekk… gross.
Mania brought things back to do new and interesting twists with them. Some of the results were better than others, and sometimes things came back worse than they were originally (case in point: Death Egg mini boss). Regardless of whether or things were better of worse, most were still good in Mania. Frontiers doesn't do anything new with the things it's brings back. And none of them are good, again regardless of whether or oh the originals were good.
Oh ya that was just a specific instance in Mania really I love the rest of the game it’s a lot of fun. It was more me saying “I despised that thing in its original game why’s it here again.” I realllllyyy hate that boss, and I realllllyyy hate Rooftop Run Act 2. Ironically I feel Mania and Frontiers both made those things slightly more tolerable, but that’s really where it begins and ends. Besides the fact they both contain iterations of Green Hill, Chemical Plant, and they both have Sonic in it, I can’t really compare the two games. Nor do I really want to. They’re different, Manias certainly more polished, but I think they’re both fun even if Frontiers wasn’t perfect.
Unleashed looking pretty was one of and still is it’s greatest strength. Too bad it took 12 years for it to finally get up to 60 fps That level gave me anxiety too, never knew when a homing attack just wasn’t going to work and I’d just go careening off the stage. The phrase “anus clenching” comes to mind.
I'm probably the biggest Cyberspace lover on here, and even I feel like Cyberspace levels that reuse proper 3D Boost levels from Unleashed and Generations are the worst off, while SA2 levels, 2D levels, and the original levels are much more fun and genuinely enjoyable to me. The issue is that these 3D Unleashed and Generations levels take up the majority of the level list, which sucks. Unleashed and Generations were pretty reaction focused with their blisteringly fast gameplay, but that is completely lost with Frontiers' controls. Even though every single straightaway from these levels was shortened, there's still a lot of empty space where you used to have to make a split second decision or quickstep, but in Frontiers it becomes trivial since you can see things coming a mile away while Sonic is going at 2mph. This is when the slower, momentum-less controls that Frontiers offers are at their worst IMHO. I have a lot of fun magdashing through these lesser levels, but as @Blue Blood said, being able to break the game in fun ways doesn't excuse a mildly boring intended playthrough.
