Showin went out of his way to say that this has a lot of unintended side effects on level design and the game, but yeah, I'm loving all these tweak mods that show the game could've been quite different if Sonic Team opted for a different approach.
It's also possible that you have things causally-backwards, and the reality is that it having a lot of 3D actually positively impacted the play experience for them, causing them to say they had a positive play experience. Like the combat, Cyber Space stages, Guardians, and the like, I can very often tell those parts to "fuck off". I could just as easily take a few steps backwards, or deliberately miss a jump, if I wanted to get right out of a forced 2D section*. That's not an option Unleashed, Colors, Generations, or Forces had the good grace (or design space) to facilitate. And, come on, let's not pretend Unleashed and Generations didn't also rely on extremely heavy automation; that's this Unleashed-derived sub-genre's entire shtick. Don't come to "Open World Unleashed" if you don't want the "Unleashed" part. *: Ignoring the unforgivable volume of forced 2D sections on Island 3. That you can ever have steering control while Drop Dashing is news to me.
That mod is pretty neat, but personally from what I played, the one by Beatz (that I did a video for) is much less unruly, so I'd recommend that one if anyone's looking to try one of these mods. I guess the true "best" one would be a version that can reign it in more than either of them and not make the addition too OP, but that doesn't exist yet. lol
People keep posting cool idle lines where Sonic references past games on Twitter, but Sonic doesn't say jack shit in my game. Does anyone know how I get him to talk?
Speaking of mods. Elder Koco Fixed [Sonic Frontiers] [Mods] (gamebanana.com) It speeds up the ring max / speed leveling considerably. Even then it's still a bit tedious, but it's way better.
I wish I had this mod before I spent a collective half hour or so maxing my stats out the first playthrough.
I think it helps that there's some actual context to what you're doing in the game instead of a bunch of shallow levels and that being it, lol. It's supported by other aspects of the game loop, like the combat, collecting, upgrading sonic, and the cyberspace stuff. I'm not sure how far you are in the game, but there's a story section later where you have to climb a VERY tall tower, and during that, I felt what the game wanted me to feel in that moment. Yea, it's still more of a spectacle showpiece than something that challenges the player, but I think the scope really sells the emotion. It was a mix of the giant world, music, and what it means in the context of the story. I think those things go in hand-to-hand more than what you expect, really.
In fairness, Frontiers > Forces by a pretty decent margin among most review outlets, that opinion isn't just a matter of fans being blindly happy because they're being pandered to. Your point is more reasonable wrt Colors though, and indeed, among critics Colors > Frontiers. Hell, Frontiers couldn't even score much better than Colors Ultimate! That's not me trying to be like "haha the media agrees with me go suck it 8 )", I'm just not sure how many people are actually writing off Colors while loving Frontiers, particularly on this forum.
Not digging Ian Flynn so far. There seems to be some general plot direction with the Coco. I can see where he's going with Sage but it seems utterly uninteresting. But crucially I think the character interaction cutscenes are pretty bad. The characters don't seem to exhibit any personality. Flynn has essentially ditched the poor humour (good thing) and not really replaced it with anything. So far the character interactions exhibit little more than bland exposition. I think this is a pretty big problem considering a lot of the time is walking around talking to characters. There is one good scene which is far better than the others. Spoiler When Knuckles reflects upon being the last echidna there's some jokey back and forth between Sonic and Knuckles. A rare glimpse of actual personality. But it's only really in this one scene. Similarly, Amy's personality is largely absent (not like she's ever really had much of one). Even her love of Sonic is only rarely glimpsed. It's better writing than Forces but below Pontac and Graff and far below Boom. I trust that Flynn does good work in the comics but I haven't read them. But not digging him as a game writer.
Automation with nothing else to do is bad. Automation I can jump out of to do other things is good. Also, entering trick mode off of "unintended" objects is fun as hell. Also also finding ways to get into the automated sections (both correctly and incorrectly) is a treat. I'm glad there's a million memory tokens to incentivize doing this. Also also also I really like being able to stop on a dime. It's a 3D platforming game. Stopping on a dime is pretty dope. Also x 4, I really like how slow the Cyberspace stages are. I got used to the difference really quickly and appreciated how much more deliberate moving around in them is. That's all for now.
give it some time once you get to the third island and beyond. I think knuckles is where the writing starts to really get better, but I can honestly agree that the writing during kronos is just, ok
It's random, unskippable, and Sonic will stop dead in his tracks to talk. I hated it. Also the mysterious voice will sometimes chime in with three to four lines as well if you longer around too long.
Prolly cause Flynn didn't write this game alone. If you were familiar with his writing from the comics you could see just how much characterization he was actually able to wrong out. There's a few cutscenes were the visuals don't really match the vibe of what's being said where this really shows. Edit: @JaxTH yea those could've been handled much better. I wouldn't go so far as to say I hated it, but it's a little annoying the few times it happens.
It's interesting reading people's responses. I know it probably seems like I'm just grumpy and don't give the game a fair shake. @FunkySpaceAlien makes a fair point about the synergy of the different game aspects coming together to give it variety. I think the varietas of the game is probably its biggest strength, even though I think it's kind of funny that it doesn't really excel in any one particular area. The game does shine when it leans really heavily into nonsense to emphasise the variety, like the coco minigames. I also agree with @Aerosol that the game does a good job of giving you freedom of entering the automated challenges. And yes, I agree it's good that you can sequence break the automated challenges. Although I still think it's a fundamental flaw that the game's platforming challenges essentially boil down to how you approach automated challenges. And @Zephyr is correct that Unleashed and Generations had lots of automation. Now I hate Unleashed! But for Generations, I think as flawed as it was, there was a difference. Frontiers largely just has entirely automated sections where all you do is homing attack. Whereas Generations at least had more player movement involved. And yeah, Generations and Unleashed appeal is largely in its spectacle. And I think there's no question both games eclipse Frontiers in aesthetics. The irony is that the game's platforming sections are much better when you are making a route to the emeralds. It feels like you are actually playing something substantial then. It's all largely automated though. But at least there's more thought in where to homing attack and jump then most of the challenges, where you are just following a thoughtless script. It's getting closer to Generations' quality level design. But this just makes the scrappy automated mini sections more jarring really.
In positive terms, can you describe what Frontiers could do differently that would make you enjoy it more? Can you talk about something you like?
The controls in Cyberspace leave a lot to be desired given the stark contrast to those in the Open World, but it didn't take long to acclimate to them. I am very curious as to why they were made distinct from one another though. Thankfully Sonic handles great in the Open World, the main game, and I very much hope future games build on it. Ideally maps in future entries will be less sparse and samey as well. It is half-baked in many ways, but I think Sonic Team finally got it right for the first time in 3D since the Dreamcast. As for voice direction and dialogue, my early impressions are positive. Sonic sure doesn't sound like he did in Forces, but rather like he has actually aged some. I ain't very far yet, but his interactions with Amy, who also seems older and wiser, got me to appreciate the new direction.
People trashed it hard because they had Mania as a direct comparison to the quality Sonic games can have, now people are a lot nicer to it. I think this game just works for people in the way Adventure did. It's janky and a bit weird but it's charming,. And the heart carries the game for me.
I’m having trouble comprehending why the steering is so bad in cyberspace, they went through all that playtesting and somehow slamming into a wall or prop no matter how hard you jerk the analog stick in the other direction was never addressed despite having incredibly smoother steering in open zone, these had the potential to be the best 3D stages we’ve had in a long time but they have these nagging control issues that seem completely obvious and fixable. The reason rolling and the dropdash are busted in 2D is because it seems they forget to lock z-axis movement during either of these meaning you’ll hit the invisible walls and stop, that’s why neutral stick makes them work properly.
Pros: Its fun to zoom around the island and clear the many obstacle courses littered throughout. The combat is pretty intuitive; its simple to learn but has enough depth to have a lot of fun trying to string the right combos together. The characterization is well-done; Knuckles feels like his old self again and I like that Sonic's friends have actual conversations with him instead of giving him generic hero praise. I liked the references made to past games in the dialogue, although I'll admit it feels like they go overboard with the callbacks at times. The soundtrack used for boss battles is energetic and really pumps you to kick some butt. Cons: I don't think hyper-realistic environments and giant mechas fit the style of a Sonic game. The art direction doesn't feel right. Aesthetic preference aside, the game has very blatant performance issues; objects pop-in even when standing still and there are many instances of flickering graphics; and I was playing on PS5. This does not look like a game made by professionals. The cyberspace levels are just re-used level segments from Generations, with a few "original" levels in the final island. They are very lazily made. The boss battles feel janky and Sonic is difficult to control in them. The second half of the game feels rushed and incomplete; the fourth island is a single story quest and the fifth island is just the first island with different obstacles I haven't played many modern Sonic games lately, but I wanted to give this game a shot as I was intrigued to see how Sonic would tackle the open-world genre. Do I regret my purchase? Yeah, kinda. The moment-to-moment gameplay is fun, but everything outside of it...doesn't feel like Sonic at all. This game lacks its own identity. Every new idea this game introduces was borrowed from another game with very little effort made to hide that fact. The overworld is Breath of the Wild with Sonic movement physics. The boss battles are Metal Gear Rising boss fights with bad camera. The skill tree exists because every AAA game these days has one, but it has such a limited amount of skills available so collecting skill points is completely pointless after a certain point. Finally, I am dumbfounded at the fact that: Spoiler the final boss is a blatant ripoff of Ikaruga. I understand that they wanted to follow what's popular in games nowadays, but those borrowed elements should have a unique spin on it that fits the Sonic franchise! Replicating the ideas without understanding WHY those ideas worked in their source games results in a game that lacks creativity and originality. That's why I don't feel like this is a Sonic game with open-world mechanics - instead, it feels like an open-world game with Sonic characters in it. I don't like being negative, and I know a lot of people are enjoying this game and think it's a refreshing new direction for the franchise. I really do see the potential here. But to me, this was one step forward, and A LOT OF steps back. I also don't understand how this game is the result of all these years in development. Can't say I'm really looking forward to the future of Sonic; let's hope the next game proves me wrong.
