I will say, despite following the level design faithfully, something about ST's terrain generation has felt incredibly sterile since Lost World. It WORKED for that game where everything had the surreal plasticine style, but in Forces and this, it feels so geometric and flat. it's already sort of offputting in Forces, but seeing it applied to the much more natural slopes and curves of the Adventure stages really puts it into perspective. I'm not sure why the cyber levels got this treatment when the open zone areas are naturalistic to the point of having to dump a bunch of scaffolding to even give them level design (though worlds 2 and 3 are admittedly a little more varied).
I’m going to guess 2 reasons 1. they’re building levels using reusable 3D chunks, which is faster than Generations and Unleashed’s methods of organically modeling everything but things end up more sterile. 2. “It’s cyberspace and digital so it’s supposed to feel inorganic since it’s basically an elaborate computer program” It stands out here since they’ve gone back to the Generations style of textures but they’re using Forces style level modeling
This, 100%. I wonder if it has something to do with Kishimoto since it's an issue in all the games he directed specifically? I don't think the director would have anything to do with terrain modeling, but idk. Either way it's especially apparent in Frontiers because the game reuses level design wholesale from Gens, but everything looks waaaay fucking blockier for some reason. Comparing the giant loop at the end of GHZ or the crumbling platforms at the end of SSZ showcases it especially; everythings looks like it was made in a level editor. I dunno if it's because of time constrains or an actual artistic decision, but I don't mind it too much because the islands actually look gorgeous and organic. Still, it's another one of those details making Sonic games look like Mario-style generic platformers that started around 2010, and I wish they'd finally do away with it. That is such an accurate quote haha. Seeing Green Forest's layout reminded me of my time as a 12 year old playing throught the Emerald Coast or Sky Troops level mods in Gens
I think that’s why I don’t mind the reuse, the rest of the game is doing something else these are more akin to Special Stages (hell the Cyberspace gates even remind me somewhat of Star posts). So I can mentally justify the blockiness and call seeing SA2 stages fun and not annoying since it’s only like 10% of the game. back in the day when I tried making hacks I even had the idea of reusing Classic Sonic stages with a digital style as special stages, and Colors did this with Sonic 1 stages in Game world (although at least this doesn’t look as cheap and lazy as that was, but it could stand to be a bit more varied)
Oh my god I'm starting to feel it. The unbroken Tony Hawk flow. The Richard Jacques Rusty Ruins ambient BGM. Sonic's little chuckle when he misses the jump in that IGN Chaos Island clip, playfully acknowledging the player's losing the fight with gravity and taking the sting out of it- that really sells me. Just a touch of polish signifying that their priorities lie in vertical level design, the primary source of tension for the platformer. Using the Shelcoof dragon from Panzer Dragoon for a boss fight. The cute little alkaline biome he lands in after. I think they finally figured out how to make a cool game.
See the issue with the latter is that this feeling pervades Lost World (even though that did it fine) and Forces which aren't like Frontiers, and the issue with the former is that we've seen how obvious it is when they reuse shit but I can't say I can connect any individual level block here to any other.
Well the chunks aren’t necessarily big, a turn, a loop, a hill, some block platforms. Spread em out enough and you might not notice too much. I’d hope they’d of learned from the heroes days not to blatantly copy and paste the level twice over.
Some stray thoughts given the new materials and discussion: I'm honestly not bothered by the 2D segments in the slightest. I've never been against the concept of 2D modern Sonic to begin with, it's simply a shift in perspective that allows for different types of interactions and challenges that was unfortunately increasingly overused. In Frontiers, it took quite some time for 2D gameplay to even come to light, so I don't think there'll be an overreliance on it. I was going to say that I don't buy that Shadow isn't in the game using logic that the fifth island will likely be very much a final area leaving 4 islands and 3 friends to rescue we currently know about, but thinking about it more, we'll likely be rescuing Eggman's ungrateful ass on the fourth island and honestly I'm very much ready to see the conversations he has with Sonic. Why is one of the cyber space stages Sky Rail? Sonic never went to Sky Rail, that was a Shadow stage. :v I imagine we've seen the extent of cyber space themes at this point. If there were more to be seen beyond Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary and City, then the odds are at least one of the attendees to the preview event would've come across them. It sucks and I'd love to be proven wrong, but I think it's probably best to go in with the expectation that those are our 4 themes. Shame to hear from the IGN impressions that the minibosses are a bit naff. Honestly, the whirlwind flame thing that was showing during that bit looked pretty fun, so hopefully I don't feel the same thing this dude felt when playing because, really thinking about it, I can't really come up with a 3D Sonic game that has more unique bosses than what Frontiers looks to be giving us. So yeah, taking the good with the bad here but I'm still so amped to play this game. Not long now!
Here's footage of some puzzles. Remember that Ubisoft tower Sonic climbed in the very first gameplay footage? Turns out that's also a speedrun challenge. Looks like some of these puzzles require a bit more finesse. I was a bit worried that they'd all be easy and mindless, but that appears to not be the case. There's also a Tetris puzzle where you have to recreate an existing block arrangement by CyLooping around Tetris blocks. EDIT: Lo-fi fishing footage: Now about all this new footage. The pop-in is still pretty awful. But, frankly? I'm starting to not care. I am IN. This game looks like a ton of fun. I really think they may have done it this time. I think this is going to be the one that gets it right for EVERYONE. That's the hope, anyway.
I still wish the platforming segments in the sky weren't just cut-and-paste blocks... but I realize that their approach lets them save an immense amount of development time. It's too bad their editor can't at least generate some natural scenery around these props.
My thoughts about the game are more or less the same. Sonic's controls sound like the most interesting part. Combat might be cool a little bit...for the first hour. Cyberspace levels are trash but at least they're cribbing other levels. Just wish the aesthetics were more interesting. Open world still looks fairly generic tbh Arcade mode is good if I wanna just play the levels so that's a net bonus If we what we've seen is what the game has to offer, I think it'll be decent but definitely not something I can play for long periods of time.
The pop-in and limited level theming is my only real concern at this point. I can have fun with button mashy combat and I think when taken with Sonic’s speed, the cyloop, and other moves, it’ll likely be more varied than something mindless like the Musou games (as in Dynasty and Samurai Warriors - the spin-offs can get a bit more deep) which I still enjoy anyway. But seriously, I hope there are more than 4 cyberspace themes. I’m guessing there will indeed be the crazy amount of stages people speculated, so I see why it’s limited. Still, even 6 or 7 would be nice.
How long until we get confirmation Sonic Frontiers' box also features a knife, scissors, can opener, calculator, and a GPS? This game is chock full.
Honestly, if you told me in 2001 that the best Sonic experience available in 2022 would be a Dreams-like rendition of Adventure 2 levels, I'd be pretty disappointed. But with that being said, I'm happy Sonic Team is acknowledging past titles and maybe Frontiers will be a stepping stone to something greater.
Omg the fish get jingle is the 1st few bars of the fish catching song from SA1, I love it. you also can catch Choppers while fishing and rings… part of me wonders is that a SatAM reference (Sonic grabbed rings from a lake in SatAM and early Archie comics, Flynn is the writer so maybe)?
Also, the fishing theme itself apparently is a Lo-Fi music... I lived enough to see Lo-Fi in my Sonic game.
And with that, I think I'm tapping out. Now it feels like they're overcompensating for their awful first showing, by now showcasing a bit TOO much. I am confident that this game will be "decent" at worst, and a great time at best. Hopefully that turns out to be the case.
The most mind bending puzzle of the game so far is why they thought having level prop pop-in that can occur a few feet away as shown most obviously at 4:40 was acceptable and didn’t use LOD transitions to avoid this. I’m curious to see if this will handle the same across all platforms.
