Everyone saying that rolling seems to work well... Does nobody else frequently encounter the issue wherein you can't control Sonic during his rolling state? I don't mind the Drop Dash being mapped to a triple-jump input, but I hate it that it seems like at least half of the time Sonic doesn't respond to left/right inputs whilst rolling. I can't figure out what causes that. Of course, that's just the Open Zone. In Cyberspace the whole thing is just broken.
The Drop Dash is kind of influenced by the slope. I feel that when you're on a strict downward slope, you can control him pretty fine. He's slightly stiffer than his normal running but I think that makes sense. Going horizontal on a slope or uphill makes him stiffer.
He’s stiff but I’ve never encountered a situation where I felt like I had 0 control. It’s certainly no Sonic Adventure in terms of maneuverability, but I don’t mind that. It feels a bit more like a real ball, similar to how Utopia’s rolling functions.
I predict the Spindash will just be the boost with the Sonic Generations drift animation and slightly different controls. I hope I am wrong.
Kishimoto mentioned back in January that they originally had the spindash and it being able to damage enemies is the reason the boost doesn’t in order to differentiate the moves but they removed it because everyone used the spindash, this hints that the original implementation was pretty boost like. The best way they can differentiate the moves I think is not having the speed cap when you jump out of a spindash and have it feel similar to what happens when you jump off a rail or climbable wall while boosting, this would set up the spindash as a more technical move useful for pulling off long jumps and other tricks.
This sounds like the lost world spindash. That’s not the most exciting prospect but there are three things to consider: 1. Is the spindash finalized? I mean there’s a reason it wasn’t included in update 1. As such how the spindash works can still change. 2. Will the update 3 levels provide opportunities to use the spindash to gain speed going down slopes? If the level design accounts for this then I would be open to having the spin dash operate differently. 3. Which characters get the spindash? If multiple characters get it then does it have different properties for each character? For instance, if tails and knuckles don’t have the boost I could see them having a more powerful spindash than sonic (who has to balance the boost and spindash) There’s a really cool mod in development that changed the physics and adds the roll to frontiers (https://twitter.com/proto_arts/status/1641492294107901976?s=46&t=S0_YkQ8TRA2Bk54XvKgWfw). This shows that adding rolling/spin-dashing has potential. The tricky part for Sonic Team is that they will prob have less leeway to change the physics than this moder. Sonic Team has to consider casual players who would be put off if Frontiers’ movement radically changed. I suspect this is why Kishimoto was talking about making a Sonic game without the boost: it’s hard to balance the boost and the spindash. It’s probably harder when he has to add abilities while having the first part of Frontiers basically play the same.
Making the Spin Dash a more technical but rewarding move to use than the Boost is always how I've seen justifying having them both. One thing I'll always point out in Frontiers is that Power Boost and level 99 Speed aside, rolling is faster than the boost which has an inherent speed cap. Imagine if that's always the case: boosting is an instant, well, boost of speed but caps Sonic's speed, while rolling is potentially much faster and allows more tricks, but is more dependent on the environment. The former is better for flat surfaces and getting from A to B while the latter allows technical prowess and sequence breaking. You could even have obstacles and hazards that require the use of one mechanic over the other. Ramps you can't boost up but you can roll up; water you can boost over but not roll.
Frontiers has the same design sensibilities of Forces. Automated challenges which involve pressing single buttons at timed intervals. Boost works much better because it fits well in a game that largely plays itself and is about spectacle.
The fact that it is open zone makes this untrue. Having springs, rails, and automated segments doesn't make a Sonic game Sonic Forces, I think. Why single out Forces when Unleashed, Colors, and Generations prior are closer to that game than Forces is to Frontiers? No matter how automated a platforming segment is in Frontiers, the fact that it is an open zone and thus coexists with other platforming segments at the same time makes it a world of difference of how a player is expected to interact with them. I think the rail momentum mechanic is a clear example of this. Even something as binary as rails can be used to skip segments and clear them in a different way, sequence break even. Even the 2D sections are affected by this, as it is quite easy to enter them in 3D, or fire off into some other part of the world. Can't agree that "Frontiers plays itself so the Boost works better", especially since in this game, the boost works entirely differently; you can't boost at a standstill; and not moving stops Sonic instantly. If the Boost was meant for spectacle, it failed since you can't even tell Sonic's boosting (of course, that's because Frontiers isn't just about spectacle, not in the core gameplay at least). I dare say that Frontiers is an entirely different game and should be treated as such, including how and if the Spin Dash and Boost can coexist. It's uncharted territory here. Hopefully however they implement the Spin Dash in the DLC will give them an idea if they can work together if at all. Successfully implementing both mechanics would be very interesting to see. The way I see it, they could properly marry their goal of capturing a casual audience while still appealing to hardcore players without sacrificing anything.
I definitely wish that Frontiers was designed around the spindash/rolling instead of the boost. That said I think both could co-exist if the boost is a state you have to earn by building up speed. This could work well in an open zone with a few collectables you can only get when you learn to master momentum to get the boost. It would be like Mario Odyssey where there are many moons that can be collected by beginners but a handful that reward expert play. Recently I’ve been replaying Sonic Adventure 2 with mods that decreases the spindash charge time and makes rail grinding closer to the modern games. Vanilla SA2 feels like the evolutionary bridge between SA1 and Unleashed in terms of more linear speed based level design. With these mods it actually controlled like something in between adventure and boost. I think there’s room to explore an in-between of the styles. I just think it’s harder to do that when you’re making dlc for a game that leans more in the boost direction. That said I disagree with Laura about Frontiers’ open zones having the same design sensibility as Forces. Sure there are aspects of it that are closer to the spectacle of boost games but I don’t think I’d go that far, especially with the inclusion of the drop dash
The longer courses/challenges (think climbing the towers on the fourth island, the long pathways to later emerald shrines, etc.) within the islands constantly offer players opportunities to switch to faster/alternative paths through quick reactions or skilled playing. I can’t recall many instances of this in Forces. Frontiers is quite clearly a different beast. In order to make the comparison to Forces, you’d have to act like the entirety of Sonic Frontiers is the throwaway token challenges across the islands when that’s not the case. Frontiers is not my ideal Sonic game, but I think it’s a disservice to the designers to act like the whole game is as mindless as Forces. This game was a marked improvement in every aspect.
I just think rolling/Spindashing and boosting could coexist just fine, at least in a game of this scale. While boosting lets you move at a consistent speed across flat stretches, climb effortlessly up steep slopes and features decent turning; it can't build speed down slopes, doesn't let you reach your max speed on the speedometer, and has no offensive use. Meanwhile rolling (or at least Drop Dashing in Frontiers) lets you build up speed down slopes, can reach (and even sometimes surpass) your max speed, and works as an attack; but has stiff turning, can't hold speed across flat stretches, and loses speed drastically up steep slopes. There's clearly an equal level of positives and negatives that make one useful over the other in different situations. Maybe having both is redundant in a game that's smaller or slower in scale like an SA1/2 or a game attuned to non stop hyper-speed like the boost titles, but the intermediate pace of Frontiers feels like a good place to try making both moves useful.
I think just rolling is a fine addition to the game. I use the drop dash as a way to accomplish it already, but having to jump 3x is a bit annoying. My only concern is how they’ll go about implementing it. I’m worried it’ll end up functioning to similarly to the boost and feel like Lost World’s spindash. It’d be ideal if tapping L/L2/LT while running/boosting would put you into the roll state and holding the button while not boosting would charge it. Or maybe have L + R trigger the charge, idk.
Also they should bring back the Adventure-style Air Dash. That has nothing to do with what's being talked about but I miss it.
God, come to think of it I really hope they refine the jump physics, particularly on the double jump. It's all well and good if Kishimoto thinks the double jump is god's gift to mankind, but he'd better make sure it's a damn good double jump if he wants to show us the light.
I think the double jump is fine as it is right now. It serves the purpose of being a slight readjustment on its own and more useful in combinations instead of being a dedicated "I don't wanna do this challenge" button. I don't really get what the idea is supposed to be if they remove the "boost". It's just a sprint by another name now. Removing it entirely would mean one less degree of control over Sonic, something that's particularly needed if they want to continue the combat route. If they rename it... Well, it's not like much changed.
What do you mean by removing? Like moving forward in future games or here? There is a large benefit in removing that move entirely moving forward as the boost mechanic heavily influences level design. Their current implementation severly reduces their linear level design since your movement controls are pretty rigid. You can't manuever as tightly as you would in the Adventure games. Admittedly, boost controls are a lot better in the open zone segments and if they were to just keep doing that then that would be more than fine. But at that point, Sonic doesn't really need a "sprint" button. It doesn't really add much depth gameplay wise as a functioning roll mechanic. We'll see how their implementation is with these updates and how people receive it. Dropping boost has been a long time coming. They've exhausted everything they can do with that gameplay and all it does is just restrict the kind of levels and gameplay they can craft.
I agree with you, but I imagine choosing to cut one or the other was less a creative choice and more a logistical one. The choice likely came down to the fact that cutting the Spindash doesn’t do much in terms of redesigning the game, since the boost is a fine substitute, but cut the boost and suddenly large portions of the game and it’s physics need to be redesigned. Rails are a good example of something way too reliant on boost for their own good that would’ve been fucked. I don’t like it from a player’s perspective, but I can sympathize with Sonic Team’s reasoning.
It's also true that the game simply was not primarily designed around rolling (but was designed around boosting for large stretches). Not many slopes outside of the few in the open world, which ARE fun to mess with, but ultimately don't contribute much in terms of level design versatility* (*not intentionally so at least, so not without abusing speedrunning glitches like homing dash to fly towards areas you aren't supposed to be able to reach easily/quickly/early- tbh I don't want to learn homing dash, but I've seen with the right angles it's ABSOLUTELY busted). At least given the datamining, it seems Sonic Team's heard and understood the feedback about the spindash, so hopefully the 2nd/3rd dlc will have areas designed around it, and hopefully so will Spoiler: In case anyone hasn't finished the story Frontiers' inevitable sequel be designed with it in mind from the conceptual/planning stage.
