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Sonic Frontiers Thread - PS4, PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by MykonosFan, May 27, 2021.

  1. Shaddy the guy

    Shaddy the guy

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    I mean. There is the third option, which is that SEGA is just generally shit at marketing these things. We knew next to nothing about Origins until less than two months before it was supposed to come out, and it looks...fine. Too little too late perhaps, but nothing disgustingly broken.
     
  2. Frostav

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    I feel the problem is that it's just not really possible to make any kind of detailed combat system mesh well with the momentum-based flow/speed that nearly all Sonic games are built around in some way, but people expect 3D platformers to have enemies. So Sonic Team is in this awkward situation where any attempt to make enemies require more effort from the player crashes the game to a halt, but if they're just obstacles to blow by, people complain that they don't do anything.

    Shoot, even 3D Mario games have way less enemies in their levels than the 2D ones, so it's a problem of combat in 3D requiring so much extra gameplay design in general. Odyssey got around this by making enemies part of your platforming/traversal toolkit, but Frontiers probably isn't doing that.
     
  3. Snowbound

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    I agree that there has been a lack of transparency with Origins. Specifically I don’t understand why they kept Origins’ developers a secret for a year and I am pissed they didn’t include the Headcanon and Taxman logos in Origins’ recent trailer.

    As for Frontiers... up to this point I can’t really agree with the marketing being bad. When they showed the reveal trailer the game was not ready to be shown to the public but many Sonic fans were begging for confirmation of a new game. I’m not saying that you were one of those fans but that was a large group. The next time the game showed up was at The Game Awards where Frontiers got massive media attention and large #s of views. Since then there’s been radio silence on Frontiers BECAUSE THEY WERE PROMOTING A MOVIE, A ROBLOX GAME, A NEW COMPILATION, A NETFIX SHOW, AND THE 50TH ISSUE OF THE IDW COMIC in the first half of 2022.

    Let’s see what they show off at summer games fest. Let’s see if they make the same communication blunders they’ve done with Origins. Then we can talk about the quality of Frontiers marketing. That is unless anyone here has a degree or experience in marketing and can go into more detail on why Frontiers’ marketing is bad. Because, & I apologize for repeating myself, there is a lot of Sonic they HAVE promoted this year. They can’t do everything at once or the general public will be confused as to what’s out. For that reason it’s understandable we don’t know much about Frontiers.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2022
  4. Shaddy the guy

    Shaddy the guy

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    Well yes, but then if that's going to be your opinion then it was weird to position it as one option where the other was just "the game is bad and they don't want us to know". Besides, Sonic Prime hasn't exactly been super-exposed (all we've got is a vague multiverse premise and a cast), IDW in general gets promoted less than it should (frankly I'm not seeing any more for #50 than usual), and Speed Simulator...well, there isn't much to say about it as a game unto itself. The notoriety of it for me is that it's an officialized fangame, not a wholly unique product like Sonic Mania was.
     
  5. Hamzawesome

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    Maybe next time Sega should consider revealing their games with gameplay rather than shitty CGI teasers. Don't reveal the game until gameplay is ready to be shown, even if the fans are begging for it. The fans are begging for gameplay of Frontiers but it's okay to ignore them now, so it should be okay to ignore them when they beg Sega to reveal a new game when it's not ready to be revealed.

    We've been going in circles around this topic for a year now, but all I want is for Frontiers to be good.
     
  6. Hydr0city

    Hydr0city

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    Definitely fair, but from the perspective of a company I kind of get it. Build up hype and let the general public know that "Yeah, we're doing shit," because there hadn't been a mainline Sonic game since Forces, which was 2017, and honestly after Team Sonic Racing there was barely any new Sonic stuff *period* after the movie. (To be fair though, COVID probably played a role in that.) They were probably finally getting some early shit done and just wanted to get their foot in the door, especially when there hadn't been much in terms of Sonic news for a long ass time. That does play into "even if fans were begging for it" though, but I can see them just being like "Hey, should we let people know we exist?"

    Not saying it justifies the whole experience, I agree that the reveal and gameplay shouldn't be so far apart, it just creates this absolutely awful waiting period where people are just waiting for whenever they decide "Lol footage here you go :)". But I can see why they did it in the first place, just because they needed *something* big to get people excited.
     
  7. Snowbound

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    You raise some good points. Tbc tho I never said that "the game is bad and they don't want us to know". I was simply stating that we can’t feel confident in the game until we see gameplay due to Sega’s poor track record. Sega absolutely can turn things around for frontiers but we won’t know until we see gameplay.

    That said, hearing people call Sega out for poorly marketing Frontiers has become a pet peeve of mine. There is more going on with the franchise than Frontiers. The success of Sonic Movie 2 shows the value of not overloading the public. Revealing a game with a CG trailer is common. Sega hasn’t given us more Frontiers info but given the movie and all other things: we haven’t been left empty handed in terms of Sonic this year. It sucks if you only care about Frontiers but in terms of the entire franchise there’s clear reasons why Sega is doing things this way.

    That said your initial post didn’t specifically call out Frontiers’ marketing. You stated that Sega is generally bad at marketing and rightly cited Origins as an example. So I apologize if some of the stuff I’m saying here doesn’t apply to you.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2022
  8. Overlord

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    Does no-one else remember how long it took for substantial information about Forces to come out?

    They'll promote it more once Origins is out of the door. It's still half a year before it launches, assuming the usual November pre-Xmas launch window.
     
  9. Starduster

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    Yeah, I don't think this is necessarily a cause for concern. Nowadays, Nintendo announces a new game usually no more than 6 months out from release, leading to a condensed promotional cycle. I think SEGA's probably going to take the same tack but wanted to pique interest first while also putting something out there after so much desperate begging from fans through 2020 and the first half of 2021.
     
  10. Snowbound

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    I also want to point out how big a deal it is that Sega pushed the game back to 2022. I’m not saying that the game is done and they’re just polishing it... I’m saying that Sega has a history of releasing horrifically unfinished games (06, Rise of Lyric) and this decision is a major break from that. For all we know they may have revealed the game prior to their decision to delay it (which could be why Izuka later commented that the reveal was premature) While we don’t know how the game will turn out we do know that it is A GOOD THING they delayed the game in an attempt to assure quality... even if it means we have to wait longer for info.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2022
  11. MH MD

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    imagine the opposite , them never revealing Frontiers last year, it's just colors remaster, Origins Collection, and the movie

    we reach May 2022 with absolutely no confirmation of a new main sonic game

    Fans will go absolutely INSANE , going 5 years of total radio silence , and the last game being Forces

    now then, imagine them revealing the game for the first time in the upcoming week, not only that, it's revealed all at once, that it's a new direction, it's open world, they showing gameplay, and it's coming after only 4 months

    that would be actually too fast, and overwhelming amount of information in so little time, and people would actually be worried for this game to come out so fast after reveal, it would be the shortest marketing cycle for any sonic game even by 2 months, and that would be just shit marketing.

    even when games were ready to show gameplay when revealed, they usually did a CG trailer anyway, to build anticipation and marketing for the game, then show the gameplay after like 1 week

    We didn't even wait that long anyway, only like 6 months between 2 trailers, and we will very likely get new substantial info after like 10 days, if there was nothing there at all? now that would make one worry for the state of the marketing for this game, but as it is? it's just a normal marketing cycle that build anticipation and hype with what they got, it helps there is actually still other sonic content in that was promoted -and released- since the announcement of frontiers.

    you people would go insane if you waited for new FF16 info for like 2 years or something, or like any Square Enix game really, and they are not really known for their quality either in recent years
     
  12. Xiao Hayes

    Xiao Hayes

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    Ah, I remember when revealing a game could only consist of actual gameplay on TV or gameplay screenshots on magazines; even if you only got a name and a title screen shown, you knew the actual game would show soon (unless it was never released, of course). Sonic is a series made for kids but recently some kids become teens before the next main game releases.
     
  13. Snub-n0zeMunkey

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    I just miss the days when you'd get a portable 2D Sonic game in-between mainline releases lol
     
  14. JaxTH

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    So Sonic Rush Adventure.
     
  15. Shaddy the guy

    Shaddy the guy

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    I think more than anything, the lack of an ongoing handheld lineup is the biggest reason certain people treat post-Colors Sonic as somehow being worse than the barrage of shittiness from Shadow to 06 to Secret Rings. In a sense, you can kind of blame Nintendo for leveraging their own portable market to make the switch print as much money as it does, but either way Sonic needs a backup developer making strong-but-small side games. Everyone wants it to be headcannon, of course, but there's plenty of devs who could do a fine job, I just wish SEGA would pull the trigger already.
     
  16. Iggy for Short

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    I'd argue one of the biggest issues is that Lost World and Forces were the absolute perfect 1-2 punch of how NOT to follow up the success of Generations.

    Earlier 3D Sonic's foundations were always a little shaky, albeit more understandably so (up to a point) in that time period. Any given game had ideas it was trying out to varying degrees of success, and even the broken mess that was Sonic 06 clearly had some ambition behind it, but none of them quite nailed it in that way that sets a standard. Sonic Generations, meanwhile, after further polishing the Boost style introduced in Unleashed and experimented with in Colors, managed to be a solid 3D Sonic game with no major missteps, technical issues, or filler. So when the two games following it threw that progress away in favor of a poorly-timed experiment and an outright downgrade, respectively, it stung differently than just another mediocre-to-bad entry. (And then there's the current writing style, which is its own conversation.)

    Yeah, obviously Sonic Forces isn't the raging inferno of a dumpster fire that Sonic 06 was. But it demonstrated that a good entry doesn't mean much if Sonic Team doesn't have the sense and talent to build on it, so now even if Frontiers is great, it's going to have the unfortunate question hanging over it: "Can they keep this going?"
     
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  17. charcoal

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    If sonic frontiers is a critical hit then they're gonna immediately follow it up with big's big fishing adventure and it will have absolutely nothing to do with frontiers.
     
  18. Shaddy the guy

    Shaddy the guy

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    I don't see much way of applying this way of thinking to Colors and Generations that doesn't also apply to Adventure 1 and 2, though. "Ambition" isn't really an objectively-measurable quality, and if I had to compare Forces to anything, it'd be to Shadow the hedgehog, which is pretty much to Heroes as Forces is to Generations, except worse. I feel like a lot of Sonic fans just say "ambition" when what they mean is something too stupid to be forgettable, and I do not appreciate the equivalence.

    I mean, I was only speaking about this opinion in abstract, in any case. I actually think not being trainwrecks if you don't look too close has helped the series quite a bit. If you liked Sonic in 2009, you were a gay furry weirdo who couldn't let go of a terrible series. If you like Sonic now...well, you're still probably a gay furry, but people leave off the last part because they've discovered things about some of the less-popular entries that they like, they'll do that for the more recent games as well, and I think enough people recognize that pattern that it's just not as big a deal.

    Either way, I'd still say that a healthy lineup of side-games would do a lot, and not having an alternative to the main series is what's causing some of our particular gay furry weirdos to be so bitter, more than simply not liking the current ones.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2022
  19. charcoal

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    is this a callout post
     
  20. foXcollr

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    Yeah, THIS. It's funny seeing the juxtaposition between people who think a delay is a good thing, vs people who think a delay is a damning sign that the game is a complete dumpster fire. I know not everyone wants to outright say the names, but I've seen numerous SonicTuber headlines saying things like "new Sonic game DOOMED TO FAIL??" or something like that, with the entire video being about how shit the game will be, and to me it really just shows how quickly people jump to conclusions. I'll sit there and listen to someone rent for 15 minutes about how miserable they are and how nothing can ever be fixed and there is no right answer, and it feels like no decision SEGA could make would satisfy everyone.

    I see no reason to panic because of the slow news drip or the delay. SEGA doesn't really seem fond of delays the way other developers are, and the last several titles that were developed on a tight schedule came across as rushed for release. I take this as a VERY good sign that they weren't just talking the talk when they said they were going to focus on quality from here-on out. I think a lot of people want Sonic Team to be Nintendo, but in it's current state it just can't be. Especially when Frontiers has been in development for so long and people were BEGGING for Sonic Team to just announce that a new Sonic game exists so they know the series isn't dead... they had to reveal something, at the very least. So I'm not too upset that they did.

    I agree that they could've done things differently, they could've pulled an Aonuma and just said "the next Sonic title is currently deep in development".... but then how many people would complain that they didn't even show a trailer? It's hard to please everyone, but I think Sonic Team are making a lot of good decisions. It's unfortunate the franchise can't get the same treatment as Mario, with 6 month news cycles and there constantly being news that something is around the corner... whether it's a mainline game, a 2D game, a spinoff, Mario Kart, etc... but maybe someday.

    I, too, miss the days when we could expect a new 2D Sonic game or a spinoff like Riders between every mainline game. I guess TSR exists, but that was 3 years ago now, so that definitely puts the long wait into context.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2022
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