Sonic Frontiers coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC (Holiday 2022, from Sonic Team)

There's a difference between the pessimists and the realists, and it's not hard to tell who's who.

 

I do wish they would’ve used this trailer 6 months ago but maybe the environments weren’t ready yet?
Either way, it’s unsurprisingly another nothing trailer but I’m pretty excited because the leaks are 100% confirmed now. And the leaks sound pretty darn exiting.
The only thing I’m not too happy about is the sub-stages being boost levels apparently, but maybe their reduced presence can finally make me like this gameplay style...a little bit

 

But it's entirely understandable for anyone to feel pessimistic towards a studio that hasn't put out a quality game in literally 10 years, towards a trailer that completely lacks any qualities that make this franchise appealing. I'm willing to wait for more things to get revealed before I totally write the game off, but it's foolish to get hyped over this trailer alone.

 

Here's the thing. I am just so exhausted, so tired of constantly feeling cynical and pessimistic about the future of Sonic whenever I think about it. I'm going to allow myself to feel excited for this even just a little bit, perhaps against my better judgement yes, but I don't care. I want to feel excited for Sonic again, and I believe I have reason to.

 

I'm pretty sure that's called Stockholm Syndrome

 

The game looks very pretty. I’m not negating anyone’s criticism of Sonic’s model but I thought he looked expressive during the cinematics. Sonic exploring an island is a good, and classic, premise. I prefer a more unique look for Sonic’s world but I’m fine with realism... as long as the environments are varied. A hallmark of the classic games were unique levels with new enemies and gimmicks. While I love the boost games this is def something they struggled with. It’s possible that it’s too much work for Sega to have an open world game w/ varied locals. It’s also possible they just ain’t showing everything off yet. Time will tell.

I am THRILLED that Ian Flynn is writing the plot. Just the synopsis made me smile. So this is a stretch (especially given the tweet from Amy’s japanese voice actor) but based off the synopsis and what we know about the ghost girl I wonder if Flynn will take inspiration from Ben Hurst’s plan for season 3 of Satam in which Sonic and Nicole would’ve developed a friendship. Tbc I’m not suggesting Nicole is in the game (tho I would totally be for that) just that she may have inspired the ghost girl. Honestly I’d love to see that given that Hurst wanted to work with Sega on the games’ plot. Ian Flynn has always been clever about making references to and taking inspiration from various aspects of the series.

As for the gameplay... Rn we know too little for me to have any real feeling towards the game as a whole. I see the game’s potential but I also see it’s pitfalls and without actual gameplay they just cancel each other out. For instance it looks like he’s boosting in the trailer... but it could be a different mechanic (like a boost state you enter when maintaining your momentum). Additionally at the end of the trailer he falls after boosting and rolls... is this demonstrating the gameplay mechanic of rolling or is it just a stylized falling animation?

The leaks also mentioned combat and I must confess I’m worried about how it’ll turn out as I wasn’t a fan of how Sega handled combat in Heroes and Unleashed. In those games I feel that Sega used combat as filler instead of incorporating it into Sonic’s core move set. I don’t want the game to stop so Sonic can fight hordes of enemies. I want combat to be multifaceted and even useful for platforming. So imagine this: you can boost but if you run into an enemy you don’t kill it; instead you bounce off it and have the opportunity to attack it with a drop kick or dash punch. As you combo enemies you get aerial height and you can use that to platform to higher terrains. Alternatively if you don’t want to stop going fast you can do a spin kick or roll. Rolling into an enemy could be the start of a combo chain whereas the spinkick allows you to run past enemies with the tradeoff being that you have to have fast reflexes to pull this off without taking damage. I feel like these ideas would incorporate combat into the core tenets of sonic gameplay (speed, platforming and exploration) instead of being filler similarly to how cappy enchanced mario main move set in Odyssey (although it also provided multiple different gameplay styles. The difference is that nintendo pulled it off and I ain’t confident sega will)

 

So Ian is the writer or is he playing a role of consultant for a team of writers?

 

Fair.

Edit: Also, why is nobody talking about the supposed day/night cycle?

 

Re: Model discourse, I'm glad we're sticking with the Forces proportions. One of my issues with the modern design was always that his spines made him look weirdly top-heavy and awkward. (And I mean, I'd still want the Runners style above all, but shorter spines are my preference.)

As for the actually important stuff... I'm so torn. I've been struggling to be optimistic about this project ever since the leaks, and the trailer itself did nothing to assuage those fears. I'm not big into open worlds most of the time, and I'm concerned this is going to fundamentally miss the point of what I enjoy about Sonic games. The visuals are gorgeous for what they are, but they don't instill confidence that we're heading in the direction I'd like.

On the other hand, the information that's come outside of the trailer (the game takes place on islands, Ian Flynn is finally writing for a game after 15 years of us begging, and the leaks mentioning actual levels can be accessed within the open world) tip me back toward optimism to some degree.

I'll know more when we see gameplay. In the meantime, I'll keep holding on to what if, haha.

 

I thought it was funny tbh

 

I feel like if he weren't at least in a position where he can decide what a given line of dialogue is, he would have clarified by now. He's not one to lead people on with bigger expectations than appropriate, at least not of his own work.

Also re: people too angry/too happy, I think we should understand when to reel in our expectations and not make wild extrapolations about things, but I also think there's a general atmosphere around Sonic communities that makes people who enjoy modern Sonic content feel a little uncomfortable. There's criticizing a series for a long time, and then there's making weird judgements about developers or fans where it starts to get a little questionable. For example, saying someone has "stockholme syndrome", a thing that hasn't even been proven to be a real syndrome that exists, because they have confidence in a video game is kind of weird.

 

Here's why I'm choosing to be more optimistic than usual this time around:

While it's true the director has directed some not-great Sonic games, said games have all been similar. Forces, Colors, Black Knight, and to a lesser extent Lost World, are all linear 3D platformers with an emphasis on reaction time and memorization and so on.

This is completely different. It's not structured the same way - it's literally the complete opposite, open world vs. linear. It CAN'T play the same, it's just impossible. So this means a whole new take on Sonic's control scheme. Maybe this is the change of pace they need to truly flex their creative muscles.

Plus, everything else about the game seems solid - that trailer music was dope, the game looks very good visually, it has promising writers, and it actually appears to have a budget this time around. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a full-price $60 game. This renewed confidence has me intrigued and cautiously optimistic.

If we get burned again, oh well, so be it. But I for one am tired of being cynical and worried about Sonic. I'm gonna let myself have this.

 

That’s exactly what I posted about a couple pages ago.

It reminded of the ‘06 portals too but didn’t want to bring it up.

 

What it reminds me a little too is Angel Island from Sonic Advance.

 

I really wish SEGA had at least talked about the game honestly because it's so unique amongst the series that we really need the info. They didn't need to do a deep dive on Forces because it was a boost game, but we really have no clue WHAT this game is outside of a completely inscrutable trailer and possibly-fake leaks.

 

My main issue with the pose that we see Sonic in is that it looks awkward. It works in 2D because it's a 3/4th angle shot, pulled way out, and it's very obviously trying to hark back to the Megadrive/Genesis days. But, it looks stiff and awkward at a close-up shot. Not only does it looks weird when you take a moment to look at it up close, but he's real stiff. Like, literally. I actually think there's outright no movement on his idle animation in Lost World/Forces (and now Frontier), but I could be wrong and it's just real subtle.

 

Didn't really show much besides the environments and hints of what you may or may not do with the Forces model still being used. I cannot conclude anything other than it's nice to look at so far.