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

Here's a tweet from Game Data Library comparing launch sales of Sonic games in Japan.

 

Looking at the credits for Frontiers is interesting. Jyunpei Ootsu was the lead game designer and it very much has his trademark of automation and block platforming. He worked on Secret Rings, Black Knight, Colors, Lost World, and principally, lead level designer on Forces. I'm sure it's not as simple as Ootsu has simplified and ruined Sonic (as fans often say about Kishomoto). He probably is reliable and experienced. But it's also very clear that as much as people criticise Kishomoto for standardising the automated gameplay of modern Sonic, Ootsu is just as much a leading figure of that direction. In many ways the storybook games can be seen as a prototype for where we are now.

The sub level designer was Masaya Hirano who has only ever worked on Sonic and the Olympics. The two newbies for Forces are not credited (Shoko Kamiya, Yuya Setogawa) so presumably did not work on Frontiers. Not sure if Kamiya has left Sonic Team. Setogawa has actually joined Square Enix and worked on Final Fantasy 7 Remake!

As has been said before, the other level designers are all complete newbies.

It's very clear that Sonic Team has a real problem with level designers. Their only constant since Lost World is Kishomoto and Ootsu.

This raises the question of Hiroshi Miyamoto and Yoshinobu Uba, who were director and lead game designer of Sonic Generations respectively. Uba clearly no longer works for SEGA since his last credit was for Lost World but I'm not sure what he's doing now. I'm also not sure what the situation is for Miyamoto. He hasn't seem to have worked on a game since Mario and Sonic 2016. It's a bit mystifying that he didn't work on Frontiers considering that it's such a big project. I wonder if he also has left SEGA.

I don't want to get too melodramatic and say Sonic Team were ruined with Miyamoto and Uba's departure. Both worked on questionable games (Miyamoto worked on Sonic 2006 and Uba worked on Lost World). But it's clear that Sonic Team has a serious level design problem in terms of staff talent. It's troubling that they didn't keep the staff for Forces and train them up. Who knows if the Frontiers staff will be around next time. If anything it'll be a massive deal if Ootsu leaves.

 

One has to wonder whether the focus on automation and simplicity is a pragmatic decision or a philosophical one. Like, do the designers feel this is what makes a good game or is it to ease the burden and limit the amount of QA that needs to be done to account for a greater degree of freedom?

 

I'm curious how far the devs went before running out of ideas for the sections where you get memory tokens, there's only so many ways one could combine springs and dashpads before they start burning out.

 

I honestly feel like they do it because they think it's good game design. A lot of effort went into Frontiers. It's the first Sonic game since Generations where I think about how much time must have gone into it. It's not just how big the levels are. They built absolutely loads of automated challenges for memory tokens. They are everywhere. Clearly they spent a lot of time designing the game and put a lot of thought into it.

Kishomoto also talks about automation like good game design and it's even something they emphasised in a public talk about level design regarding Forces (discussing how they removed obstructive platforming challenges by simplifying).

I think a lot of people don't want to accept the reality of Sonic Team. They deliberately choose to do automated game design. And to be honest I think they also deliberately choose to reuse old level themes. I don't think it's just reusing assets. There are clearly a lot of new assets in the Cyberspace levels.

Case in point.





I wouldn't be surprised if some of these assets are essentially remade by scratch. It doesn't look completely like Generations in the same way All Stars Racing Transformed does.



I think a lot of people want to think that Sonic Team are reusing old levels because they have to do so. I think a lot of people want to think that Sonic Team are automating the gameplay out of neccessity until they get a proper 'blueprint' for the next game. But honestly, I think Sonic Team wants to do both.

 

I wonder if anyone's planning to try to fuse stages of the same kind?

 

If Sonic Team spent time remaking assets for the returning level themes, then that's even worse than reusing them. They could've used that time to make some new level themes instead, you could come up with plenty of original level themes just in a few minutes of brainstorming. I feel like some higher-ups from Sonic Team are forcing them to include these returning stages, they couldn't have possibly thought it was a good idea, right? ...right?

 

Also a case in point that they want to make Sonic automated is that you just hold parry and it will always work. It's not timing based. The parry is essentially automated. It is exactly the same mentality behind the platform automation. Don't make the game too challenging so the player can focus on having fun. It absolutely fits within Kishomotos attitude to game design.

 

I kinda wonder if the Sonic Team artists feel kind of...limited and bored? I mean especially Colors just reeks of creativity, and then the same artists were content with what we got after? I don't get it.

 

In fact now that I think about it, Kishomotos infamous 'let Sonic run like a maniac' mentality is present everywhere in Forces and Frontiers. He stresses the fact the player only has to press one button to have a good time. I wonder if this is a horrible interpretation of Classic Sonic's one button gameplay but could be a coincidence.

But in Frontiers you press one button to boost. You press one button to homing attack chain, boost into a ring, or snap to a grind rail depending upon the automated challenges. You hold two buttons to automatically parry attacks. All the major facets of the game just involve one button press. It is why I do not like modern Sonic game design.

I guess the combat is different outside of the parry. Probably why it is one of the better designed parts of the game.

 

Yeah Frontiers is in a weird position of trying new things while so tethered to the old at the hip. And it's headed entirely by new interns and hires with a few vets in charge that come from the games that are very much not what Sonic fans want. It's a miracle that Frontiers managed good reception as it is, but fundamentally everything wrong with Forces besides maybe the story factors are here, just segmented differently enough to not be so blatant and dressed up well enough to get good reception. Also known as, "they put in effort for a game that didn't feel soulless this time."

I kind of want a major creative shake up for this reason. People used to blame Iizuka but he's a producer, and not the Keiji Inafune "this is my plot and game idea, please create it for me" sort of producer. We need fresh faces besides the entourage of new hires to really vary the series up for what's to come with new creativity, because even as someone that likes Frontiers, this bunch in charge have repeatedly learned all the wrong lessons and don't give me confidence it would change for what comes next.

Hell, when Kishimoto was announced to be in charge again and that this would effectively be the Colors/Lost World/Forces team yet again, I immediately wrote the game off at the time.

 

It goes with the long tradition of adding variety through rather "un-sonic" elements rather than varying up the classic Sonic gameplay. Like in this game with the shmup and pinball sections

I like the combat tough, they have done a good job making it sonicy imo. It's strange how the enemies provide the setpieces, but the levels themselves don't. It's different for sure, but not ideal at all.

 

I for one am glad the parry is not time based. I can't tell shit during the bosses so I'm glad that the parry will work no matter what.

 

Yeah, that Improved Physics mod trying to make Parries go off a second after pressing the command actually really sucks, because it turns out that for as easy cheesy as it is, it's also insanely clunky and has a hilariously bad amount of recovery time by default that the mod didn't alter. Sonic is just completely locked into place 'til he finishes his backhand air slap.

You'd basically have to crack the animations and give Sonic a custom animation with custom frame time recovery to make that not suck. Abusable infinite parry is a bandage on top.

 

That's really interesting, is this talk available online? I'd love to know more about this.

Sonic Team's game design is outdated in a lot of ways and could really benefit from a true shake-up in mentality.

but like @Blue Blood said earlier I think it can be hard to have confidence that this shake-up will ever happen when we expected that Frontiers would be the one to bring it. Old habits die hard I guess.

 

The parry in particular is so odd to me, because me and my friends all noted as we played the game that it simply doesnt make sense to have it be held forever and work, and itnreally feels like most of the game was designed around it needing to be timed at least somewhat. Between the challenges that require you to parry, the thin "spidersense" warning of attacks about to come out, and the janky floating you can do by just holding parry in the air. It really feels like at some point it was timing based, and most of the features were designed around that, but then at some point they changed their mind.

 

Kinda veering away from the discussion slightly, here’s something I never thought I’d see again, a 3D Sonic accolades trailer



Also just beat The End yesterday. Wow that battle filled me with feelings and was also imo pretty damn hard, they threw me a pity life I died so much. I’m used to final boss dialog being his friends obnoxiously cheering and repeating shit, not existential dread. Damn though what an ending imo, still giving this an 8.5/10, I just loved this game. Also it was a comfortable amount of challenge, first Sonic since Unleashed that had a sense of difficulty to it.

 

Yep, 8.5 out of 10 seems right to me.

My save file sits at the moment at 61:13:58, that's how long it took me to collect all memory tokens, get a decent time on every Cyberspace stage, max out Sonic's stats and beat the final boss. My thanks for keeping me entertained all the way through the game, Sonic Team. Had trouble buying into the plot of the later half (are you sure you didn't dream all of that?), but all in all, it was the most fun I've had in years with a game.

 

Still on the fifth island and haven't played much in the past 4 days, game pretty much confirmed what I was afraid of when Sonic Team said the game was 20-30 hours long. At least these cyberspace levels are cool, but this gameplay loop really doesn't work for a game this long, especially with how the world is designed. Really feels like they just ran out of ideas and time with the final 2 islands.

Gonna try to finish this weekend and see how I feel about Frontiers after then go back to grinding classes in Xenoblade 3

 

But Zelda BOTW has tons of empty terrain, far worse than Sonic Frontier. To me, Sonic Frontiers looks to borrow from the likes of ICO and SOTC and SOTC had empty terrain (Yes I know its years old). If a game is fun and plays and control well, I can look past flaws (like Daytona USA on Saturn). I loved the battle with the Shark on the 2nd Map, its only a small thing but its bring back some of the felling of the 1st Sonic Adv came and hanging off the Helicopter in Speed Highway and thats whats a lot of this game does.



Games feeling unfished is what a lot of people like to say in this gen, isn't it? . I think Halo Infinte is the best Halo game made since the 1st game and this Sonic title is the best made since Sonic Adv. There's so many neat touches in Sonic Frontiers that it makes up for its many short comings. Also, I wouldn't say that having more staff is always the answer; Just look at cyperpunk a massive budget over half a decade in development , a huge massive development team and for many (not me) it felt unfished