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

Oh yeah Colors did just randomly nail Super Sonic of all things didn't it? I should probably give that game more credit but it is just oh so hateable.

 

Really? I really have no affection for Colors’ Super Sonic due to the lack of Wisp abilities. It’s not much better in the other games as the boost makes Super Sonic largely irrelevant except for the jump height being increased a bit.

I forget how he played in Lost World so no comment on that.

 

Lost world super sonic replaced the spin dash with the boost so that was somewhat interesting at least. I dont remember what else changes with him though, if anything

 

That's a great point in that Unleashed-style boost just kinda is 'hold x to Super Sonic'. No wonder his later incarnations have been so unmemorable. Made worse in that Super/Hyper's abilities really shine when you're not only using them to blast forward as fast as possible which boost-style level design generally doesn't allow for.

Of course none of this excuses Frontiers and makes its lack of attempt outside of bosses even sadder.

 

Lost World 3ds' Super Sonic is just an invincible, faster Sonic. And it's absolutely glorious to play with and makes the already really fast and technical level design even more fast and technical.

Too bad about the special stages you have to play through for him.

(Also realizing it's not only the first time a handheld Sonic is a 3d platformer, but also the first time a Handheld Sonic lets you play as Super Sonic in normal gameplay! Only took them two decades.)

 

Generations on 3DS didn't have that? Weird.

If we ever did see Hyper Sonic return, I wonder what would make a good mechanical distinction for it. The signature midair dash would probably be a little redundant at best and difficult to translate well to 3D controls at worst.

 

Faster Super Sonic with a borderline moon jump is already pretty cool to me but I think you could integrate the air dash by just making it so he can spin dash in midair, freeing up the control stick for omnidirectional aiming.
That is if we're even going with Genesis-limitations Super/Hyper forms where you can't just fly around and shit like Super Sonic in Frontiers. Yeah there is a lot to consider here lol. So many inconsistencies between games.

 

I think limiting super sonic to specific bosses/levels is a good thing. It means they can specifically design something that is fun to play as super, does anyone actually enjoy standing on a boss for 10 seconds? If you ever debugged enough rings onto death egg to become super you'll understand what I mean. Doomsday zone is somewhat challenging the first few playthroughs despite the fact that you're super, because it is built for it. Sure maybe as a bonus it's cool but being super in normal levels is basically an easy mode, I'd rather be messing around with the elemental shields/wisps, always confuses me it takes away stuff.

 

yeah like, maybe it's because the Perfect Chaos boss fight was amazing to me growing up and really just set the bar higher, but I think the way Frontiers went about Super Sonic was the best way to go. When Super Sonic's use is limited, and you fight GIANT THINGS, Super Sonic feels special, like more of a reward, even if that reward isn't optional anymore.

(I said in the Unpopular Opinions thread that S3&K's final boss with the Death Egg Robot really set the standard for me, and I feel that this is just the natural progression of that)

 

I like messing with Sonic's momentum physics. A fully playable super form gives me more options to mess around as well as just a nice replayability reward, same with Hyper. That's all I really want. I don't like him being used as a carrot on a stick to only be temporarily given to me when the game context deems it correct. Showing Sonic to be able to transform during island gameplay but then not actually letting you do that just feels artificial and weird. In 3&k we saw him go Super just to surf on the water for a bit, and now he just refuses to go Super when it would explicitly help him go fast/platform? It just doesn't make story or gameplay sense and comes across as willful teasing from Sega at this point.

 

It's not like mechanically unique Super Sonic sequences and an unlockable Super Sonic form for normal levels can't coexist. 3&K, Generations, and Mania all had both.

 

^This
For Super Sonic I wouldn’t mind him being limited to specific bosses… in the first play through. In the triple trouble fangame I like that we get a 2/3K transformable Super Sonic as a new game + reward. We have to learn the levels the first go around, then we are encouraged to replay to take advantage of Super Sonic’s Super Stats (If you can’t tell I like alliteration)

 

Absolutely fucking essential. All of the characters are still using models and animations from the mid-2000s. They've been tweaked a bit over the years, with new textures and slightly modified polys, but Sonic's model in Frontiers is basically the same as in Unleashed. It's got to go.

 

They could get a pretty good PR boost by having Tyson Hesse outline the guides for models and such. The man who saved the movie, now saving Sonic's ingame models!

 

Dude's worked wonders on the series' art in every area except within a main game from Sonic Team themselves. I don't know why they haven't gone the whole hog yet.

 

It took a full decade of complaints about Pontac and Graff for them to let Flynn write a script, doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.

 

I kinda have to agree with Overlord here. Forces proved that these models are fairly expressive when actively used that way. The problem is that with all the rushed development, Sonic Team hasn't used them to their true potential.

I honestly think that a consistent model is better than the half hazard set of changing models with differing proportions we got in the 2000s. They just need to actually use them to their fullest potential.

 

I think the models are fine the way they were used in Unleashed.

 

I agree the model is fine. Frontiers could certainly have better animations, and I’d be all for Tyson Hesse being brought in to improve animations, but I suspect die-hard Sonic fans will be the only folks who care about the model itself. What casual players find visually off-putting about Frontiers is the pop-in, not Sonic’s model.