Ehhhhh, there's a huge difference between "blending Mario with pinball" and whatever the fuck is going on with the 3D games. One was done in an attempt to create a completely new experience that couldn't be found in Mario games, while the "random bullshit go" of the 3D games is just trend chasing without trying to make it feel like a unique experience.
I finished Frontiers last night. From the perspective of a classic Sonic fan, who has been very critical and generally dissatisfied with modern Sonic, this is my opinion.. I enjoyed it, it was far from perfect, but good. More than anything, I see it as an excellent step in the right direction, but from here it needs a refined style and a world that seems more full and fleshed out, such as more variation in the environments. It felt like only 3 overworld themes existed and they were generally barren with few set-pieces. IMO Frontiers was clearly better than Sonic's worst games (06, Sonic 4) and I found it more captivating overall then other modern games I've played, like Generations and Unleashed. I supposed a happy marriage for the next game would be Sonic Frontiers and Sonic Adventure. I also thought the cyberspace levels were great! At times they were aggravating, and a bit finnicky, but I actually enjoyed how bite-size and riveting they were. If these zones were actually integrated into an overworld it would be better. It's also annoying to continue getting the same zones rehashed instead of imaginative new zones, but... again, overall it was pretty solid, it just needs MORE. Imagine if in the next game Sonic was speeding around a city like a jungle gym, running across buildings, and launching into hidden spaces a la Mario Odyssey. Imagine if Sonic found a way into a sewer, like in Adventure, and then that opens up into a path similar to the cyberspace levels, then once you make it through you have access to some new area that progresses the stoyline. Imagine an entire game like that, that seems possible for the next iteration. In the next game, I'd like: New zone and environment concepts Cities to explore (Mobian City and Robotropolis) More hidden content to explore and discover (not collect-a-thons) A new voice that suits Sonic's character and physiology Robotnik to ditch minimalism for luxury dieselpunk designs (play up his vanity and develop the character further).
I noticed something a little weird, this game doesn't seem to have a thread in the reverse engineering section. Is modding inactive or something?
I'm not only lazy, I'm also very stupid so I can barely apply mods let alone make them. I figure making the thread meant I had something to contribute. That being said, I wasn't really asking "where the mods at?" I was just remarking on this phenomena that's been present with every Sonic release seemingly being smaller for this one.
While I'm not sure about the scope of it, much of Frontiers' modding scene is primarly located on sites such as GameBanana, or are least it's where most of the mods are posted. I could be wrong though :P
Yeah, exactly I can find some posted on GB and there's a few of the usual suspects on Twitter posting the occasional finding but that "gold rush" for a PC Sonic game just did not happen it seems.
The game's been out for two months. It's still actively in development. The modding community is still developing tools, cracking formats, etc. Give it time.
it's really weird that sometimes people think they are stuck in a twilight zone episode when a common opinion is different from theirs.
I was trying to remember what the "flip jump" was, but remembering and then seeing this in action made me think, uh, yeah, the sequel should definitely incorporate this more. Weird thing is that I use it so much in the open zone and incorporate it into how I platform but I never actually registered it as a particular mechanic in itself. Which probably actually makes it one of the best additions to the series, yeah.
I'd say both were fairly unique. I haven't seen any collect-a-thons that play like Knuckles' treasure hunting levels, or shooters that play like Gamma (especially in the pre-Ratchet & Clank days), or just any game that plays like Silver in 06. The difference is that Mario was more polished and enjoyable. Although I recall a number of mini-games in 3d Mario receiving a lot of flak, like the pinball in Mario Sunshine, or the manta ray surfing in Galaxy, or the gliding minigame in Galaxy 2. But those made up short sections, rather than one third of the game.
Been enjoying my time with the game so far at around 4 hours total, not a lot for what this game contains, will see if I can finish and give my my full thoughts afterwards. Also, this is something minor, but if anybody ever saw the 60 FPS Sonic Team intro logo, which ended up being 30 FPS instead for some reason, which bothered me when first booting up the game on Steam (thankfully, a mod fixes that), will dabble into more mods once I get to see the ending, been real exciting to see the stuff people do with this game.
I just played the Sonic Frontiers demo on the Switch (I don't own the game yet), but based on what I've played and seen of the full game, for a series known for taking advantage of Sonic's momentum & move set to travel the terrain in new and unexpected ways, there isn't many secrets to find. It particularly bugs me, because in open-world games, the whole point is to play the game your way and explore this giant world for yourself. Sure, there is the main mission in order to complete the game, but there should be plenty of cool secrets if you were to look outside of that. Many of the the things to do in Sonic Frontiers are locked in Cyberspace portals or with Character quests. What if Big's fishing minigames were next to ponds in the open-world? Or on Ares island, you could treasure hunt with Knuckles? Or on Chaos island's ice section, there was a miniboss exclusive to there that you would have to look for, and gave you a new move after beating it? The open world feels dead compared to games like Mario Odyssey or BotW, in the sense that there's not much that's actually part of the Starfall islands. Most of the platforming is suspended midair by purple platforms and at most, if you were to look for secrets, you'd find a memory token. The problem gets worse when you get to Rhea and Ouranos island, where there's entire sections that definitely look like there's something that's supposed to be there, but instead just dead space awaits you, wasting your time, where it would be infinitely more interesting if something special was there, applauding the player for going out of their way to see what's there. An example I could give for what I want is, what if in Chaos island, you reached the top of the volcano after beating Knight, and there was a dungeon in the volcano, and at the end, a boss awaited you? Even just an item that provided lore, or increased Sonic's arsenal would be fine. For instance, in Mario Odyssey's Mushroom Kingdom, there's this floating island that seems unreachable, but if you can get yourself up, there's a really cool easter egg, rewarding the player's curiosity. The current form of Sonic Frontiers is really bare with it's replayability besides cyberspace, but in the open world, there isn't much left to do after completing the game.
I just figured Sage locked it in a cyber cage as well and it was released from Cyberspace at the end.
