I thought it was the other guy who got sick on Heroes, leaving Iizuka to design the last fourth of the levels completely on his own or something like that. Maybe they both got sick. Either way, yeah. Crunch culture is real in Japan and it fucking sucks. I hope they manage to fix the technical issues with the game before release. If there wasn't too much time between the IGN build and the SGF one, I think they've made good progress, but whether that steam continues to release is anyone's guess. You'd think in an era where every game gets a day-1 patch that the load on workers would be lightened somewhat.
What I'm getting from overall critics is that the game has technical problems (which may or may not be fixed/improved until release) but is actually fun. I'm satisfied with that.
It's not a surprise that the initial preview featured an early build, they usually do. That wasn't the problem with it, SEGA totally fumbled making the game look at all compelling in the footage they provided to IGN. The newer footage is definitely doing a better job in this regard. It's nice to see that there are some added improvements in the new footage as well. I still have problems with the various railroading aspects I'm seeing but the new footage definitely looks more fun. As more info comes out my impressions have become slightly more positive and it's baffling that SEGA thought the initial reveal was enough.
Someone posted a good high resolution pictures of the demo: https://twitter.com/Sonic_Frontier/status/1536453408588189696 What's interesting is if you zoom in, you can see this build is still called Rangers.
This makes me wonder what the number next to the speedometer is even more now. Since we now know that you upgrade Sonic's aspects (speed, defense, rings and attack) individually with collectables, what does this number refer to? Even if it were some "overall" level (which wouldn't make sense cause it seems like you can level into one stat or another in different ways), it wouldn't make sense for it to be at zero when the others are at 1.
Well that's what I was just saying. It seems like you level up your stats individually with items (think the cores from BotW that increase hearts and stamina), so an "overall level" wouldn't make sense, it'd just be decoration (and I guess the max would be 200?)
But you can upgrade your status individually and still have an overall level. It might not be a very useful information to see in-game, but could be it.
Just a random thought, but it's been mentioned how all of the footage we have seen so far is from the tutorial area. I wonder if that explains all the random floating rails and stuff? Maybe wishful thinking, but perhaps in the rest of the island the game features are a little more integrated with the landscape.
Today's game development pipelines plan up to the day of release. There's not really much good to be done there because the day you release is the day you wind down the production rather than the day you start printing copies. Unfortunately, delays are way more complicated than they seem, because *everyone* plans around the same date, so when someone says they need to switch it, everyone needs to reschedule, and everyone has to deal with the consequences of that including the people it's supposed to help. I'm not saying that not delaying it in attempt to reduce the workload is a good thing... But at some point I do think they don't necessarily need it to give it the polish it deserves.
They said the tutorial is a more linear, closed-off section that eventually "opens up" into the rest of the overworld, not that everything we've seen is from the tutorial area. Once Sonic starts seeing all the floating rails and giant towers and Eggman buildings, I'm assuming the world has "opened up" already and the tutorial is definitely over.
Easy allies said that so far all the footage that's been released for frontiers is of the opening 15-30 minute area that is more linear. They said they barely got to the area which opened up before their time was cut. During this little aside where they were talking about how far they got, they mention that all the footage that has been seen from the reveals came from this same area. It was a post from 4chan in the initial leak which said the opening 15-ish minutes of the game serve as a tutorial, and that once you get passed that area, the game opens up and is less bland.
...The shit we've seen looks neither linear nor like it would take only a half-hour to fully explore.
If that's true, then this map must be truly immense, like enormous. I was under the impression that big, wide open area we've been seeing with all those small forests and waterfalls was the actual game. Edit: PCGamer described it very differently, they again mention the "small arenas, with nowhere to go but forward", which doesn't look anything like the vast area we've been seeing where you can go in literally any direction, with Sonic running through forests, venturing toward the Eggman building, etc. This feels more in line with what GameSpot said about the tutorial area "opening up" into the rest of the map and letting you explore freely.
oh hey, he grabbed onto the wall once and then ran up it instead of just climbing for several seconds before jankily transitioning to running. The sharp camera cut to catch up to Sonic near the top of the tower is kind of jarring but I understand it. The desaturation when you land a parry is 1.) sick and 2.) ripe for memeing. Performance actually looks fine in this video footage. I'm not the type to give a shit about pop-in or texture detail, mainly that the game runs at a steady framerate and it seems to be doing so here. I'm not a huge fan of the motion blur though and hope we can turn it off...it makes me kind of queasy. The cyloop in practice reminds me of the same visceral joy I get drawing something in Okami, which is a good sign. Ring magnetization (following and then being drawn into Sonic) seems better in this build, not just being a sterile straight line this time. I really like the enemy design and animation, especially that humanoid one with the slashy arms. Sonic's combat anims still are a bit jank but the enemy routines seem cool. The section in the Easy Allies video where they navigate those homing-able floating platforms is kind of a triumph for me personally. Platforming in SA1 in particular, say, in Speed Highway, homing attacking those robots in the air before you try to land on the platform with the 1up is super fucking jank but it seems really smooth here, and the homing attack seems to give you enough control to land on the platform you homing attack? That's an improvement over the Sonic games I actually like. The design language of the floating platforms is pretty cool too - the cyber "wings" they have while they stay up is my kind of vibe. Also, the speedometer is fucking sick hahahahaha, I enjoy it when they lean into the "Sonic is secretly a racing game" kind of adjacent fan theory. I'm pretty optimistic now. Will it blow everyone's socks off? Nah. Will it be a groundbreaking revelation in platformers? Nah. But I do think it'll be fun, even if it's a bit jank, and that's mainly what I care about. That, and hopefully that it is a much more stable PC game than Generations, a game I was enjoying before it just stopped opening for me, was.
Here's the quotes from Easy Allies about where they got in the demo: "and that's one thing that I feel was conveyed well in the demo -- and it was a very tutorialized area. It wasn't even very wide open, It was segmented. It was like a funnel, to like a bigger space, which is about when our time ran out." And they talk about how they aren't sure if the tutorial prompts stop showing up: "One thing that bugged me, it felt like you were being constantly bombarded with tutorial pop ups. ... I definitely forgive the tutorialization because it's very different from a typical 2d or 3d sonic experience. I assume that entirely goes away once you get used to things. Or maybe not." I don't think anything we've seen is particularly that big. If you look for landmarks in the back grounds of the videos shown, the entirey of all the videos shown off is actually a pretty small area. Let's walk through the footage: This spinning top battle, you can see the spire that is climbed in the back ground. You see the path to the spire is pretty linear, you go along some cliffs that are surrounded by water. That's the spire you run to which you see in a later clip. At the top of the spire, we look down, and see it's along the edge of the water, like seen before. We also see in the upper left corner one of the many robotnik-symbol freeza ships we see in another clip. When we get to the bottom of the rail on the spire, we see that big boss with the arms that you run up that is shown in the initial preview. In other clip, we're running along these red paths: And they lead to this, a shot of this flying inverted pyramid: When we see that one puzzle where sonic jumps up the small pyramid shaped platforms, in the background we see the spire: And behind that, in the opposite direction, we see the inverted pyramid from the other clip in the distance, along the coast: All the things we've seen from all the clips appear to be very close in proximity to each other, and following the linear coast. I have a feeling everything we've seen so far is basically the equivalent of the Great Plateau in BotW. That's what the 4chan leak said. The size of the map is apparently staggering.
I am skeptical a bit on the customizable controls. It's a cool idea in theory, but I am doubtful ST will let players make the game unplayable, so every platforming challenge has to accommodate every possible setup.
