Frontiers is still getting depot updates for it's beta branch, so we'll likely see a patch for the Final Horizon sometime soon.
Please, Sonic Team. You have the opportunity to balance the difficulty options that you put in the game. You also have the option to make the fucking sliders work in cyberspace.
That would require them to admit that having entirely different (worse) controls in Cyberspace was a terrible, baffling decision. In all honestly, Frontiers is filled with truly inexplicable decisions like that I desperately hope Sonic Team doesn't commit again if they return to its gameplay style.
So, to clarify first: I haven't played Frontiers, but I am watching someone stream through it right now and am on the part where they're doing the final DLC's content, and I do gotta ask: ...where was this level design in the previous boost games? Like, it's probably tuned too hard, and these towers are just a lot of "floating platforms in the middle of nowhere", but wow...hard 3D platforming in a boost game? Holy shit. Even the best boost games generally never had this much emphasis on 3D platforming as opposed to chaining boosting and your moves to flow through a level. Honestly, kinda wish I had played this game instead of avoiding it because the initial release was so messy I do hope that in the next game Sonic Team can do more 3D platforming like this later. And yes, I do like platform hell games like Celeste and Super Meat Boy
Frontiers, especially the post-release content, is almost an entirely separate beast from the boost games. Even the cyberspace stages feel way different to play.
Not fond of people calling Frontiers a boost game tbh, any similarities it has with the other boost games are mostly superficial and in line with other Sonic games imo.
The moveset and obstacles are still strongly rooted in the template set by Unleashed's daytime stages. I don't think that's superficial at all. Frontiers simply fleshes that template out much more than Colors, Generations, or Forces did.
Or if you don't like what Frontiers did to the boost formula, you might also say it regressed it. I need to stop talking in the second person. But yes, Frontiers is definitely firmly rooted in the basic rules, functions, and abilities for 3D Sonic that Unleashed founded. I think it's perfectly acceptable to call it a boost game, the core gameplay is all there, but it takes that concept in a different direction through the open zone.
If Kishimoto follows through on the idea of the next game not having the boost, would it still be a boost game? If the answer is "yes", then is Lost World a boost game? Because the boost in Frontiers and the run button in Lost World are actually really similar (most notably in the fact that you can't use them without holding the stick, and they don't deal damage), even though Lost World feels much more like SA1 than it does Unleashed, at least to me. If the answer to that is "no", then what is the element of boost-ness that separates it from Frontiers?
Honestly I'd be entirely down for Frontiers 2 to ditch the boost. I think it *can* work in the open zone format but I think getting rid of it and bringing the spindash close to something like the Adventure games rather than a boost by a different name would really alleviate the problem of content blowing by too fast and justifying the space in the open zone being used better by making it more densely packed and ultimately organic in its terrain, rather than quasi-realistic islands with ill-fitting rails and platforms floating everywhere.
"Boost game" might not even be the best name for the template set by Unleashed's daytime stages that Frontiers sits within. Like, if Frontiers 2 doesn't have the boost, will it still have the quick step, the stomp, the Unleashed-style Homing Attack, 2D sections which are structured to have the player go through chains of "homing attack, stomp onto dash panel, etc", and so on? Because if so, it'd still be within that template. Never played Lost World, so I'm not sure if its gameplay involves that kind of stuff.
I think people tend to commonly refer to boost games in the same vain as “meta era” games. My standards as if this is a boost game or not? Yea I’d say so. It’s just a different take on the formula of instead of reacting to high speed obstacles your instead using the boost to assist in solving problems that are either puzzle based or obstacle based, just not at the same sense of speed the previous games had. It’s tricky though since you could say pretty similar things about Sa2 in regards of if it’s a boost game. I think the easiest and cop out answer is that Frontiers has an ability referred to as the boost which you’ll be using for the majority of playtime.
What does and doesn't define a boost game has always been kind of nebulous, but I think everyone generally agrees that Frontiers is built on a similar engine from previous games since Unleashed. That being said; the template of gameplay that's defined the 3D games has been a stable since Sonic Adventure 2. More focus on linear levels and avoiding obstacles at a breakneck pace with less emphasis on exploration. It just didn't become fully realized until the Boost mechanic was introduced, which heavily emphasized that type of playstyle. I'd say Frontiers isn't a Boost game, but it does use it as a frame work. It's one of the biggest criticisms of the game that it's an engine designed for linear levels trying to be an open-world game.
It's not a criticism from my perspective. The gameplay is the only thing I really love about it. Boost style is my favorite kind of Sonic game. Frontiers doesn't give me much of what I want out of Sonic in terms of aesthetics, tone, or sound, but at least it still plays like it. That's strong enough to hold the rest of the game together for me. I definitely agree that the origins of the formula stretch back to SA2.
Hah, I was wondering if my offhand comment would spark conversation. For the record, I erred on calling Frontiers a boost game because it's core gameplay mechanics derive from them a lot. I mean it just straight up has boost for one, but also minor mechanics like the stomp are present and the general feel errs on the side of boost gameplay touched up for a open 3D environment. It also often uses 2D sections like the boost games did. Now, I will concede that the boost itself is greatly de-emphasized and frankly I could see a version of Frontiers without it at all (whereas Unleashed, Generations, and Forces would be nigh-unthinkable without it), but it's still there. I also feel that you CAN argue that Boost's philosophy began in SA2, but that game's levels still feel designed fundamentally differently than what we'd end up seeing in Unleashed.
Yeah, I can see the argument that SA2 planted the seeds of the general direction towards more speed-focused gameplay relative to SA1, but SA1 still added a lot of staples to the "automation" design toolbox that have remained staples (such as homing attack chains and boost pads in every stage). It's also not as if things stayed purely speed-focused afterwards either; Heroes, Shadow, and 06's levels had their share of branching paths and secrets to find. I feel like the "avoid obstacles at a breakneck pace" template, insofar as SA2 introduced it and passed it on, wasn't really picked back up in the 3D space until 06's mach speed sections and Secret Rings.
The overpowered nature of the boost and the linear level design are I think key aspects of the formula that Frontiers and SA2 lack to fully be considered the same game, even though the former is definitely based on it and the latter is the progenitor. EDIT: This means that Cyber Space 4-C is the most "Boost" level in the game, which is ironic since it's wholly original
I'd honestly argue that most speed levels in SA2 are more linear than the better boost levels, which tend to feature more overt alternate paths (Seaside Hill Modern in particular is a shining example of this). SA2 is almost entirely devoid of meaningful alternate paths that aren't tiny shortcuts.
Yeah... I see Unleashed's daytime stages (and most of the 3D games that followed) almost as a "next generation" version of what SA2 was going for with its speed stages. With SA2, Iizuka talked about giving Sonic more actions (swinging, grinding, etc) to give the player a feeling of "tempo" through the stages. Unleashed and Generations in particular are that concept on steroids: More actions, more stage gimmicks, more speed, and more choices. I think it says something that SA2's layouts translated a lot more cleanly to boost-style Cyberspace stages than anything in SA1 would have.
