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

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by MykonosFan, May 27, 2021.

  1. SuperSnoopy

    SuperSnoopy

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    Slice of life visual novel, coming soon...?
    Hey, good on her for not mentioning 06 at least.
     
  2. Blue Blood

    Blue Blood

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    I don't know how this happens:
    Frontiers, like every other 3D Sonic game, rigidly locks your controls when you hit a "jump panel" and you therefore have almost no ability whatsoever to manipulate where you land. You go exactly wherever that spring/dash ramp was set to take you. I don't know how something could have made her overshoot the goal. It doesn't make sense. I wish that modern Sonic games would let you overshot jumps from a spring. Lol

    The whole article sounds like it's coming from someone who doesn't really have much understanding at all how Sonic games play, because she hasn't got a grip on the mechanics beyond "jump on springs and rails". She was playing through Ares, the second island, for half an hour. Frontiers has a lot of mechanics to play with and they're introduced to the player slowly on Kronos. But if she's not really much of a Sonic vet (or maybe she is but Frontiers just includes so many different mechanics to before), then starting on the second island could very well have just been too much all at once. Sounds like she should have been playing the standard demo on Kronos, rather than the special press one on Ares.

    Or maybe Frontiers is just shit and she's totally right. Wouldn't be the first time we'd had a bad Sonic game. It's just that the first thing she mentions in that article doesn't really register with me, and even she says she didn't have time to get to grips with the mechanics. What she's saying is at odds with what we've been hearing from many other people right now.

    What she says about pop-in has been a concern from the first footage though. And I'm going to interpret "soulless level design" as "realistic looking but empty open world peppered randomly with traditional Sonic elements such as springs", which is also something that we've seen for ourselves.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2022
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  3. The writer is having trouble with a modern Sonic game (read: automation and bounce pads) and her bio mentions enjoying FF, Persona, and The Sims (not to knock those - I enjoy Persona and FF). Honestly, I’d be a little more open to hearing from someone go, “I blasted through this game and it sucked.” Some games need someone good at them to review it. Look at the reviews of Sonic Advance 2 and Sonic Rush (or the pretty good reviews of 4 Ep 1) compared to the fan reaction and you can see how this is relevant to Sonic.

    In a more extreme example, as someone who plays a lot of rhythm games, a random person off the street wouldn’t even be able to clear a 8B stage on DJ Max, let alone provide me a useful analysis of the charting or mechanics. Ironically, her bio mentions rhythm games so I’d probably listen to her opinions on those over Sonic.

    The rest of her complaints I can’t really speak to unless I played the game. I don’t know if the world layout is like a drunk man playing Jenga but I got a bit of that from the IGN reveal in June. I can say that unless the writer is not representative of the general gaming public, this article suggests that Sega’s goal of broadening Sonic’s appeal may not work out. Who knows? There seems to be more positivity outside than usual but I don’t really keep up with it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2022
  4. I've said this before, but Sonic games tend to play radically different from their contemporaries and unless you're familiar with them, they may feel extremely unorthodox and disorienting.

    Reviewers are meant to play games as fast as possible because they have to get to their next review. They literally do not have the time to go into a game in-depth, which is problematic for games where the meat of them comes from exploring and learning them. Its generally why better received games are focused on superficial and easy to understand parts that they can easily digest on a single playthrough.

    Not that Sonic games aren't notoriously clunky in design, but I don't think its a coincidence that Colors and Gens had much higher critical reception than Unleashed, when the latter has much more complex level design to say nothing of the Werehog.

    This is why I can't really rely on game reviews for fighting games, because I know for a fact that none of them have even a fraction of the knowledge needed to understand those games.



    So...all we can hope for with Frontiers is that its surface level parts can entice the audience, otherwise we might get a scenario where fans have to do the bulk of the work in dissecting the game and showing off its merits.
     
  5. Laura

    Laura

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    She produces loads and loads of articles. Sometimes multiple ones a day. I think Frontiers looks bad but it's pretty clear that the article she wrote is poorly written. It is decent at having that quirky rambly sense of humour a lot of young people on the internet really like. But, I mean there are just basic typos here - 'they appear awful suddenly' which I think means 'they appear awfully suddenly'? So I don't think very much thought was put into this article at all. Just one of many articles she wrote to try to establish herself.

    That said, just because something is badly written doesn't mean it's wrong.

    @Blue Blood is right that some of her criticisms ring true. The fact the open world is populated by inorganic platforming challenges, the dreadful popup. I also think she's probably right that the tutorials are boring and that the bosses could become tedious.
     
  6. Sneasy

    Sneasy

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    Articles like that and seeing how some people play the Cyber Space stages, maybe 3D Sonic games are that hard to play without experience.
     
  7. Are we so out of touch? No, it’s the game reviewers who are wrong. :V

    Only being semi-sarcastic there.

    No one had serious problems playing Adventure 1 and 2 judging by the pretty good reviews. And the reception of Colors and Gens seems to suggest the transition to boost wasn’t so hard for people. I think the audience has just broadened out so much that the average skill level has drastically declined. That Cuphead fiasco has also made people extra skeptical of how much they should really trust game journalists as well. I also saw a Yakuza Ishin preview recently where the player literally never locked onto an enemy and then complained about constantly whiffing attacks lol.

    It reminds me of how people say you’ll read an article in the paper about a topic you’re very familiar with and go, “These people have no clue what they’re talking about,” then flip the page and expect them to accurately inform you about something you don’t know about.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2022
  8. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    One of my college friends had no idea how I managed to be good at Unleashed’s day stages. When designed right boost stages can be tough (they can also not be, lot of Forces stages for example).

    How ironic then that so far all the stage reuse has been from Unleashed and Generations :V well and oddly SA2, I was very surprised to see them reuse City Escape SA2. Also pleasantly surprised to see Classic Sonics GHZ Act 1, if only because those 2D stages seem a little more organic and layered than most of moderns 2D sections.

    Speaking of the city levels, we’ve seen a 2D one, is that based off anything? I can’t tell
     
  9. Sneasy

    Sneasy

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    One thing I see often is people switching rails by actually jumping instead of pressing left or left, which increases chances of dying by 65%.

    And I think, "I don't actually blame them." It is more intuitive to want to jump to another rail than to move a stick. But the latter is the easier and quicker option made specifically because people would jump off rails to their death. It's those nuances you get used to when you've played Sonic for years, while novices would be perplexed by the very notion of grinding on rails to begin with.

    Apparently not.
     
  10. qwertysonic

    qwertysonic

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    creating the biggest sonic collection
    This kinda messed me up
     
  11. Overlord

    Overlord

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    I find it hard to disagree with this specifically. This isn't even a Frontiers-specific complaint, it applies to just about every fangame attempt of this style of play that's been done over the years (e.g. Utopia).
     
  12. Sneasy

    Sneasy

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    I disagree with it on the notion that it is a too absolute statement to make over the first official attempt of the idea that they played for 15 minutes.

    "I played BOTW for 30 minutes, and I didn't particularly have fun, so maybe Zelda should never be more than very linear hubs that lead to six to eight dungeons." Hell, people say something similar about the complete BOTW and I still think it's an unfair statement.
     
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  13. Blue Blood

    Blue Blood

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    I don't disagree with the notion that not everything needs to be open world. Open world Sonic fan games, like Utopia, have all been far less focused than Frontiers though. They're aimless, wide expanses of nothingness. I'll criticise Frontiers for its total inability to organically weave traditional Sonic gameplay elements into its world, but it definitely looks like its got stuff to do and that it'll be quite seamless to flit between different tasks as you explore.

    I'm also incredibly tired of how restrictive all 3D Sonic games have been since the Advent of the boost. 3D Sonic was always relatively linear, especially compared to the branching pathways of the 2D games, but playing through any almost level from Unleashed, Generations, Colours and Forces feels so painfully samey every single time. The cyberspace levels on show in Forces look like something I'm just going to want to ignore for the most part. I'm yearning for a Sonic game that opens up. It genuinely seems that running around the open world - sorry, the open zone - is going to be pretty enjoyable because Sonic controls nicely and there's some degree of freedom that's sorely been lacking elsewhere.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2022
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  14. Zephyr

    Zephyr

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    It's perfectly fine for someone to not be interested in the sort of open-ended gameplay loop that open world games tend to provide, and it doesn't always take a lot of playtime to decide that something isn't for you.

    I say this as someone whose all time favorite games include things like Oblivion, BotW, Pokemon Legends Arceus, Elden Ring, Valheim, and even the Utopia demo (which has a similar appeal to me that a Tony Hawk game does). This kind of stuff is my cup of tea. It's not going to be everyone's.
     
  15. Snub-n0zeMunkey

    Snub-n0zeMunkey

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    my biggest fear is that if the game turns out bad, people will start mindlessly throwing around the phrase "Open World Sonic doesn't work". Poor execution doesn't mean that the idea was bad to begin with.

    it's like ordering a cheesecake and when you get it, it has rat turds on it. That doesn't mean that the entire concept of cheesecake is bad. Idk I couldn't think of a better analogy lmao
     
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  16. Wraith

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    Breath of the Wild was just Zelda going back to it's roots as an open ended adventure game. You can't find a Sonic RPG on the genesis but there are some really neat one of a kind arcade platformers to take influence from.
     
  17. jubbalub

    jubbalub

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    First impressions are everything. If I don't get hooked on something within the first half hour of playing it, I stop playing it and go play something else. I have a very short attention span, so that may have something to do with it, but you get the point.

    This is probably why people are STILL writing off the game, despite a multitude of positive impressions and articles from people who actually played it. Just because Sega dropped the ball SO HARD on early marketing, and it's tainted the entire public perception of the game since.
     
  18. charcoal

    charcoal

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    Keep in mind that this is one negative impression out of a sea of positive ones by both fans and non-fans alike.

    Games won't appeal to everyone no matter what, literally everything has it's detractors. In fact, there's even a minority of Zelda fans who dislike BOTW, which just boggles my mind. One negative opinion on a game, especially when contrasted against so many positive ones, doesn't mean the game is automatically shit.
     
  19. Laura

    Laura

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    Nah.

    Some of us don't like the game because it looks bad. The combat looks sub par on a mechanical level compared to a competitor open world action game. It also looks very janky with terrible presentation.

    The level design looks poor compared to open world platformers. Shallow automated platforming challenges which seem divorced from the open world geometry.

    The Cyber Space levels have very shallow and automated level design and the maps are tiny.

    It isn't that we can't get over the initial reveal. We just think the game looks bad.

    I know a lot of people are excited for Frontiers. I understand why. It's an important title seeing as it's the first time Sonic has gone for a full on open 3D game in over a decade. It's getting some positive reception from people and critics who have played it. But really, I think people need to understand why some of us don't like the look of it.

    You know, I really hope I'm wrong. I do find the whole premise rather odd. A Shadow of the Colossus type game mixed with combat and platforming. Not exactly what I'd imagine for Sonic. But I honestly don't mind what direction Sonic goes in if the game is good. If Frontiers turns out to be really great that would be wonderful. I don't want to be able to play Miss Prediction. But yeah, at the moment, I do think it's going to be subpar. Probably not terrible, but not a good title in a very competitive market.
     
  20. Its a matter of perception than anything. Zelda is generally regarded as one of the central pillars of Nintendo, regardless of the quality of most of the games due to the goodwill the series has built up.

    Sonic doesn't have that...to say the least. The perception of Sonic is still very much that its a mediocre series far past its prime, even if that's not actually true.

    Because anyone that isn't a hard-core Sonic fan are gonna judge the game through word of mouth. So if Frontiers gets mediocre to bad reception, most people are gonna write off as "another terrible Sonic game" and keep it moving.


    Unfortunately, these are things that nobody can predict and you just have to pray everything works out. Talking about if Frontiers is good or bad is pointless until we play it; people who don't think the game looks good may be surprised, while people thinking its will be amazing might be disappointed. There's literally no way to tell at this point.


    I feel there are good and bad things about Frontiers at the moment, just like any video game in existence. Because no game is perfect. But I can't accurately say if I'm gonna enjoy it until I have it in my hands because there's no frame of reference to compare Frontiers to.

    And that's the biggest issue with rating Sonic games. They're all so different from each other that you can't even judge them compared to each other, let alone other games on the market. Like sure, combat may be worse than other character action games, but that's also only one part of the game too.

    Like I don't think people understand just how annoying it is trying to rate 3D Sonic games "accurately". Mania was easy to judge because its based on a style that has been proven to work in the Classics. But 3D Sonic doesn't have that luxury because they notoriously have never been consistent for more than a game or two.

    Someone who's idea of 3D Sonic came from Adventure is going to have a different idea than someone who's ideas come from Sonic Unleashed. And neither one of those games will help you judge Frontiers.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2022