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

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

  1. Vertette

    Vertette

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    Having good writing in the commercial is already pretty promising. Consider me optimistic for once!
     
  2. Xiao Hayes

    Xiao Hayes

    Classic Eggman art Member
    Because it's the same as PSO2:NGS, as I noted.
    I'm not mad, I'm just bored of generic envisions.

    The whole grassy island could have been like Green Hill (ok, better not exactly that example), but it's just default grasslands; now we see the new island, and it's sand and the same stone stuff from the first one, which is ok (the stone stuff), but shouldn't be the only element with personality in the whole game (in regards to landscape, I mean). I'm ok with generic environtments with generic gimmicks if I have fun, but, like someone has mentioned, if this was something like Planet Wisp, a somewhat believable world but not our very world, it would gain a lot of points in my book. The game can look beautiful as it is, but some landmarks or unexpected elements would seal the deal.
     
  3. RDNexus

    RDNexus

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    I decided to look up songs by NateWantsToBattle.
    Got quite surprised he had so many Sonic covers.
    I'm no music connoisseur, but the trailer's artist kinda sounded like him.
    May be wrong, a more extensive trailer may give us all better clues ^^"
     
  4. foXcollr

    foXcollr

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    I don't mean to interrupt the commiserating, but this is not an NGS thing. The plains -> desert -> snow -> fire/volcano thing has been done to death in so many franchises, including numerous Mario games. Guess where PSO2 regions draw inspiration from... BOTW, which is 90% those same 4 regions except you can do them in a slightly different order. Every other biome is just a slight spin on those 4, whether it's a lake which is just "plains but water" or a canyon that is just "desert but in a hole". The vast majority of the game falls into those 4 categories, with slight deviations not unlike the marshes and plateaus and forests we've seen in Frontiers so far.

    Are these level tropes incredibly generic and overdone? Yeah, but I really don't see the NGS thing. It had already been done to death by the time that game released, and BOTW is absolutely not the first example. We also don't know ALL the biomes in Frontiers, so plains/forest and desert doesn't bother me too much.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2022
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  5. Laura

    Laura

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    I do think having fire, ice, sand, grasslands generic tropes etc is very boring. This all depends what they do with the tropes. Maybe they can make them interesting and different compared to other titles. But if we are just doing generic tropes by the numbers I'd consider it a major misstep.

    This is Sonic. Unique level tropes should be expected.

    To be honest I'd say all of the eras have been good at giving us unique and interesting environment tropes.

    Classic era gave us casinos, mysterious caves, labyrinths, mushroom hills, chemical plants, ancient ruins etc

    Adventure and Heroes gave us San Franciso styled environments, pyramid caves, water military bases, amusement parks, haunted houses, etc.

    Modern gave us Unleashed world city style environments, the Colors aesthetic, and even when the newer games were rehashing old designs they still looked distinct from other games.

    Yeah all of the above eras used traditional environments tropes too, but it wasn't as if those tropes were the common mainstay.

    So I don't think it's acceptable for Frontiers to settle on generic and dull biomes just because fbey are logical world environments. And if other platformers do it then I think that is irrelevant. We should look at Sonic's own legacy.
     
  6. Frostav

    Frostav

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    Elden Ring is stuffed to the gills with beautiful unique areas from Stormveil Castle, Liurnia's lake, Raya Lucaria, Siofra River, Crumbling Farum Azula, Lleyndell, Caelid, the Haligtree, Deeproot Depths...using it is a terrible example honestly. You'll also notice that all of these places are unmistakeably Elden Ring and share a very cohesive, coherent, and striking aesthetic identity. Frontiers is almost entirely devoid of any coherent art direction and nothing about it looks distinctly Sonic.
     
  7. charcoal

    charcoal

    Be Cool, Be Wild, and Be Groovy Member
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    Both the grass and sand biome have these ancient looking structures that seem to hint at some sort of ancient, long gone civilization. Both of these biomes both look like they belong to the same game and have a pretty unique style, to call these devoid of art direction is blatantly ignorant.

    I was skeptical at first about the game not looking Sonic enough too, but it seems that this isn't laziness, but a deliberate stylistic choice.

    It's not trying to look distinctly Sonic on purpose. It's trying to look distinctly Frontiers. I'm excited to see more of these areas, because the more I see of this game the more I fall in love with the completely new art direction. Remember, this game is supposed to take place in completely new lands that are entirely foreign to Sonic, and IMO, it'd be weird if the areas were distinctly Sonic because of that. It's like if Sonic Lost World actually lived up to it's title.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2022
  8. Frostav

    Frostav

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    I mean, okay, I'll concede that.

    ...I just don't think that it looks that good? Like, yeah, it's trying to be its own thing, I just think that thing is super boring and unfitting for Sonic and I wish it were something different. It having a reason for this bland art direction doesn't justify that direction. Sonic Team justified Forces by saying that they wanted the game to be extremely automated and linear so people could play the game without much trouble--but that doesn't mean we have to like that Forces is that way.

    A bad intentional decision...is still a bad decision.
     
  9. charcoal

    charcoal

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    Disliking the art direction and thinking it's bad is an entirely subjective thing. I was just arguing against disliking it purely because it's different.

    You can dislike it all you want, but claiming it to be an objectively bad decision just because you don't like it is just plain dumb.
     
  10. Londinium

    Londinium

    People actually read these? Member
    Argument reminds me of this legendary tweet

    [​IMG]
     
  11. The environment art is definitely bland, not so much bad, but borderline. I like the enemy design as it has some sort of uniqueness, and surrealism that reminds me of Sonic CD.

    The random rails and platforms give me Bubsy 3D vibes. That saying I am going to give it a chance when it releases.

    When you start saying that art is completely subjective then you run the risk or allowing poor art to be called good, forever lowering the bar. I'm not sure exactly how to put my point as I'm drunk at 3am, but often the term 'art is subjective' is a free pass for shitty art (composition/lighting/subject/colour/ etc) this is how artists get away with putting a glass of water on a shelf, and writing their name on a toilet in the tate modern.

    ahhh fuck it, I'm not gonna get my point across because I'm drunk , I can't get my thoughts into words and it's gonna devolve into semantics

    I might edit this comment into something half coherent tomorrow, but I'll probably forget
     
  12. Sonic Team want this game to have a more melancholic atmosphere. Having a bunch of brightly lit areas and familiar Sonic locals would somewhat clash with the aestheric they're going for.

    I'm not gonna say its good or bad before it's out, but I feel like a lot of people are missing the point.

    Judge the game for what its trying to do, not for what you want it to be. Even if this game isn't exactly what most Sonic fans want, at least try to look it at from the perspective of what the developers were going for.
     
  13. Snowbound

    Snowbound

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    I really like these ancient structures and I wish that we had more of that in the art direction. That would be really cool to have a realistic take on the absurd visuals that sonic has had since the first game. At the moment I’m unimpressed with the locales showed off. To be blunt: I don’t like it. That said frontiers is made by a team that’s significantly smaller than most open world games. The bland open zone art style and the reuse of assets in cyberspace levels is not due to laziness, it’s an intentional choice to make the best of the team they had given that they decided to make an open world game. Maybe they could’ve made a smaller game that had a more distant art style but for better or for worse that’s not what we’re getting. That said people are still valid to voice negative opinions about the art style. I will add that all my non-Sonic obsessed friends think the game is blatantly ripping off BOTW.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2022
  14. Starduster

    Starduster

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    Except those examples, the Duchamp Fountain and An Oak Tree, are Dada era pieces that seek to challenge and contemplate our very perception and philosophy of art. They’re not meant to impress in their construction, they’re meant to represent ideas and spark thought regarding the nature of what art can be. That is to say, you’re conflating the technical competency of a piece of art with intent, philosophy and social context.

    The vast majority of commercial media don’t heavily overlap with the art that one may consider as belonging to a gallery, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t engage in the kind of artistic and symbolic though present in those works. In Sonic 06, Solaris, Iblis and Mephiles are all steeped in Hebrew mythology. In Adventure 2, the characters are paired off against foils that allow each other to be explored, pushing them to grow. And now in Frontiers, the environments and enemies are employed to invoke an atmosphere of unfamiliarity within players that reflects Sonic’s situation.

    You don’t have to like the result of this, but it’s entirely unfair to dismiss as objectively bad in an artistic technical sense for the thematic choices that have been made. One of the common platitudes toward the game regards how beautiful the environments look, so clearly that can’t be the case.
     
  15. Shaddy the guy

    Shaddy the guy

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    That's the entire point, though. Calloused or even nihilistic art exists, in large part, to deny uptight people the right to demand the rest of the world abide by their own standards. You don't get to call those things "objectively bad" because you don't get to decide what good and bad are. You can believe a thing to be good or bad without making it everyone else's problem, but it will only ever be your belief. You'll almost always find like-minded people and sometimes have a majority opinion, but the idea that "objective quality" exists in any measure is the language of someone looking to call their standards objective above others.

    I seem to remember we had an entire circular argument where I explained exactly why one game was praised and other ones were criticized and you completely ignored me. I'm not really interested in getting into that all over again, but could you please not act like it's still some mystery that nobody ever offered you any answer to?
     
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  16. Zephyr

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    I don't think this game's artstyle is ripping off BotW at all. That had a vibrant, cel-shaded, watercolor sort of look to its visuals. This game's environmental visuals look more stock and generically 'photo-realistic'.
     
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  17. Ok so I'm not drunk anymore but hungover so that means a grumpy old man.

    I knew my post was going to open a can of worms, and it was communicated badly. Those where bad examples. This is not high conceptual art, this is a Sonic game.

    I still stand by my belief that art is not completely subjective. We could argue that all day but there's not really much point.

    And quite honestly Frontiers overworld art direction is not up to snuff. It's lazy, generic and uninspired. I expected better, and it's quite clearly under developed.
     
  18. Wraith

    Wraith

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    There's merit in respecting what the artist's intentions are, but that's not how most people perceive things. At the end of the day, the art either sparks some kind of emotion or it doesn't, and as someone who's praised Sonic 06's environmental design in the past, Frontiers makes me feel bored. These vistas are well crafted, but they don't have anything new to offer and spark any intrigue. I'm not seeing anything I haven't seen before in dozens of other open world RPGS and I'm not curious about what's beyond the horizon. I'm not saying that it doesn't fit the Sonic series or anything like that. Sonic's explored forests and ruins before. I just mean to say this is the least interesting take on those ideas in a long line of games that have done them well.

    Ironically, this is where some sort of Sonic iconography could help things. An open world that looked more distinctly Sonic would be something unique to offer the market, visually. Breath of the Wild uses familiar iconography and architecture to pull the player in certain directions so that they can never get too lost. In the same vein, Elden Ring has landmarks placed everywhere that are going to pull players into more dungeons, combat encounters and secrets. Sonic Frontiers is trying with these non-descriptive ruins and towers but the bland visual design isn't doing it for me.

    I always thought the fantasy of an open world Sonic game hinged on being able to freely explore Sonic's world. Up until now some of the most interesting vistas in the series have just been set dressing, so a game based on exploring those backgrounds freely would have been something new. Instead, they've created a game where you can explore environments from Shadow of the Colossus as Sonic which is kind of charming but doesn't have nearly the same appeal.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2022
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  19. MH MD

    MH MD

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    Castle, water, castle, water, city, city, sand, big tree= grass+ city, cave+grass


    What there is new exactly ? Even the academy was disappointing with it being just another castle and not offering something really new, FS had a tons of castles in their games and they all look samey

    And when you look at the overall world map of the game, you can just see grass, sand, lava, and snow areas very clearly, taking most of the space, the most unique areas are small and contained, but never really made it into being huge part of the open world

    now, those environment looking distinct an a way that make you say “oh that’s from Elden Ring” is a different matter, cause sonic games can use known tropes and still make it distinct, no one gonna mistake Green Hill with any other game other than sonic, and it’s basically a grass zone

    i guess those two discussions topics “tropes, and unique use of said tropes” had kinde merged into one topic, but I consider them different things and was focused on the topic of plain old tropes
     
  20. Laura

    Laura

    Brightened Eyes Member
    Just to touch upon the 'art is subjective' point briefly. Honestly I'm not going to talk about this in great detail, but it does bother me.

    A lot of people say art is subjective as if all art reception is just down to personal feeling. Except that's not true. Virtually everyone subscribes to general frameworks of good and bad art. We all virtually unanimously agree the Room is a bad film, for example, because it fails on general consensus on good filmmaking. It has repetitive irrelevant dialogue, poor acting, irrelevant scenes ro the plot. Etc. Could keep going but you get the point.

    Now I respect people who genuinely do reject frameworks of good art. Who would say 'no the Room is legitimately good'. They really could say that art is all just subjective to personal feeling. Those people exist, but they are very rare. Most people arent like that.

    And this is what annoys me really. I'm not saying it's simple and straightforward, there are loads of frameworks of good art which often are in disagreement and contradict each other. But most people do subscribe to some of them. Which is why I get annoyed when people say that art is all just a matter of personal taste and that there are no standards. Despite the fact they themselves do follow certain expectations and standards.