Hmm... Imagine this scenario. Sonic Frontiers will replace all the rings for blue coins. Iizuka will give an interview saying "Rings were always only a game mechanic. There is no lore in them. By replacing them for coins, we hope to please both the old fans and the new ones". Twitter gets crazy about it. Tons of videos are uploaded on Youtube stating how people miss the old Sonic when everything was so much better. The game comes out and backslash happens. Two years pass. Ian Flynn tells us in his podcast we should not worry about the blue coins anymore. In 2025, Sonic Team releases the next game, Sonic New Lands. Rings are back, with a major importance. Iizuka says in another interview that Sonic Team learned from previous mistakes. The game is good. People begin to miss the boost formula. Sonic Team decides to bring back the boost formula for the new title, Sonic Frenzy. And Green Hill. And Zavok.
Are these the loops you’re seeing in the distance, to the far right of the tower? Or am I missing some other loop/ring-like structures
I think it looks pretty good for the most part but I wonder why they've gone for a somewhat gloomy and muted colour palette? Spoiler: image comparison idk maybe slightly more saturated colours might give it more of a Sonic-y feel? or maybe it just makes it look a bit visually overbearing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Uh not really? Maybe compared to Skyward Sword and Wind Waker, but Twilight Princess and both N64 games were definitely grittier than BOTW.
BOTW has about the same look as those pics. It's not really "gloomy and muted" by itself, but compared to Sonic visuals in general it's kinda muted.
I'm starting to come around on the presentation a little bit. It's not what would come to mind when I think "Sonic game", but it seems interesting in its own right. It looks like that mountainous ridge in the background is part of the level, which is encouraging because the trailer seemed overly heavy on green environments. The adjusted Sonic model looks pretty good too. The world still looks a bit lacking in the height department, but it's hard to read too much into that when the gameplay is such an unknown.
Yeah, Twilight Princess embraced the "brown and bloom" of that era of gaming extremely hard. I don't mind the Sonic Frontiers open world not having much verticality even if it's a solved problem nowadays. Whether the verticality is good or not depends on what movement mechanics the game has - if there is actual climbing like in BotW or Pokemon Legends, then it's a net add, but if there isn't, then it's just a buggy, kind of terrible hindrance like in Skyrim.
It's definitely a very different visual style for Sonic. Even '06 of all games had some pretty vibrant colour design in certain environments. I guess I'll get used to it with time. Here's something just for the sake of comparison: Spoiler: Image Comparison Green Hill Zone with Generations' colour palette Green Hill Zone with Frontiers' colour palette They'd definitely be able to escape the comparisons to that Sonic in Unreal Engine video by making the environment a bit less muted. It's a little thing but it goes a long way. Maybe the "cyberspace" levels will have a more traditional Sonic aesthetic with vibrant colours to contrast with the more grounded look of the overworld
A crop of this image was used in the removed SoJ Instagram shot from when they were announcing languages. Spoiler: img1 90% sure those are the arches leading to the pointy propped-up structure. Though they seem pretty far apart compared to the close-ups we've seen. Spoiler: img2
Maybe the coins are used to open up the cyber levels, similar to how other platformers used "currency" to open up new levels and areas. That would give good incentive to explore the areas. Aside from that, I'm liking the diverse terrain that is involved in getting to said coins, and elsewhere for that matter. I'm glad to see such environments in 3D Sonic again.
Right? It finally looks like you can actually explore structures. It's like we can finally play Generations overly detailed backgrounds that were always blocked off by invisible walls
Kazuyuki Hoshino posted a tweet yesterday asking about ideas for a Sonic Frontiers limited edition, I think. I don't know how accurate twitter's translation tool is so if anyone can clarify on it that'd be cool
an artbook would be cool. I don’t know what else to request given that we know so little about the game.
I'm more interested in what that tweet is a quote retweet of. Is it really a drinking stream, or a "drinking" stream?
Now now, let's not get too hasty . First we need a meme teasing a teaser, then a teaser teasing an announcement of an annoncement, then after all this we'll finally get a 15 seconds gameplay clip and a promise to "see more later this year". Remember, it's all part of their great keikaku* to advertise Sonic games and we're just too dumb to understand it. (*translator's note: keikaku means marketing)