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

Perhaps. When they do market testing they usually bring in non-fans so it's likely they wouldn't really know who Amy was. But to be clear, the post that we know for sure is legit didn't mention a ghost girl (or anything about the story, really). That info came in from different, unproven posters.

 

I think one of the biggest issues I've had with Sonic's visual design in the last decade is that while the environments are changing, Sonic's model never does to accommodate. So he ends up looking really out of place when Sega don't update the design to fit in line with the environment.

Visually the game is as impressive as Unleashed, which is a GOOD thing, but I really hope we start seeing more familiar architecture. But yea, they really needed update Sonic's model. No excuse to keep using Unleashed's model in 2021.

 

For those interested, the Japanese trailer has the tag line "風が運ぶは、声なき声" which roughly translates to "A voiceless voice carried by the wind".

I think the trailer looked okay, sadly I don't really believe it. Sonic Forces had a lot of "mood" setting CGI trailers and the final game doesn't really convey that tone. I also have great reservations as to whether the game will look anywhere near as good as it did in those in-engine flyover shots. Ultimately that game's got to run on Switch and Xbox One hardware, two systems that are really struggling to handle modern open world games. We'll see.

I'm curious, though. I like the idea of an open world Sonic game but I need to see it in action.

 

Let's remember, that Sonic Force's was in 2017. The landscape was very different.

Right now we have a successful movie with a highly anticipated sequel coming out next year. Sonic is big again, and I believe that Frontiers has a considerably bigger budget than it's predecessor.

What I'm afraid of (kinda) is the Switch port. Don't get me wrong, I know Switch can run some impressive games (Witcher 3, Doom Eternal) but it's still Tegra. I'm happy that Switch owners will play this game, but on the other hand I'm afraid of the end results on PS4/PS5.

 

I had almost 0 expectations and was still disappointed.

Since it was in-game cinematics and CGI shots, it must've had really beautiful world design to win me over with this trailer. The CGI looks decent, with the particle effect of Sonic "boosting" (the cyberspace one) looks great, but overall the cinematic still doesn't feel like it's on par with Sonic Unleashed opening cutscene to me. Sonic doesn't feel like he fits within the environment, even within those CGI shots.

Another thing that stands out is when Sonic right at the end is launched into the air by that robot, he is flung into the air and just.... stays there. There's no gravity, he doesn't fall back to the floor, it just looks really odd. I get that it's a CGI trailer and means nothing for the game itself, but it just looks bad.

Within the in-game shots, it looks like a game that has been developed for PS4/Xbone/Switch. That's not to say it looks bad, but that's also not to say it blew me away with quality. It's not enough to carry a trailer in my opinion, it's just graphics that look like an earlier in life-cycle 8th gen console game. Some of the screenshots on the website look gorgeous, but then the other ones have some really obvious ugly spots (feature image 1, the flowers look like they're floating on the water with no semblence of being tied into the scene; feature image 2, that's gorgeous minus the ugly looking bushes bottom left; feature image 3 you can see what they're going for, but you can also see the grass LOD and where the additional tall grass fades in and out, which.... is quite close to the camera).

If we assume they're giving their best showing for the images on the website, we can assume it's running on PC/PS5/Xbox Series.... in which case I dread to think what it may look like on last gen consoles.

The Sonic model looks odd because it's different in both the in-game scenes and the cinematic scenes. I thought something looked off, but couldn't figure it out until this thread people talking about the in-game model. I don't necessarily hate the Forces model, but something in-between the cinematic and Forces model of proportions I think would've worked out best (and given some consistency to the cinematics/game world).

I expect the game to obviously improve before launch, seeming as we're a year away from that, but nothing that's been shown has really given any excitement to me. It just looks like a generic BotW clone for now, with an ugly blue hedgehog model shoved into the scene. SEGA really did hire this man.

 

Every Sonic game since Heroes has been multiplatform with the exceptions of Colors and Lost World, and those were part of a deal.

It fits in line with Sega's general mindset of trying to hit every market at once.

 

This has the potential to be pretty badass, but as usual I'll have to subdue anticipation until I can really see what the gameplay is like. Haven't been thrilled by a 3D Sonic since Generations. Curious about this new ghost girl character...

Also, Sachiko Kawamura as Producer is very interesting.

 

I want to fall very much into the realist category, so let me lay out my concerns more directly...

1. Sonic's speed makes creating expensive, resource heavy Open world environments an extreme challenge. His best classic 2D outings already relied on massive, complex stages to give him the physics based gameplay we at retro love, as well as the exploration element of branching multiple pathways that made his stages so advanced in the early 90s. Attempting to translate Sonic into a more open world design implies an expansion of this concept more directly than the on-rail action stages we're used too, and the thing is that this is an immensely challenging thing for any AAA studio to accomplish, let alone Sonic Team with their mixed track record of 3D titles. Remember, that Sonic with his speed could run across the entirety of massive maps like Breath of the Wild, GTAV, Bethesda Worlds, and more in mere minutes. To counter this you have to create truly expansive/complex/layered/interesting spaces for him to explore to keep his gameplay interesting, as well as create a very high quality physics system for him to interact with environmentally. So far, we still know very little of how that works at all, let alone if it will be well polished and optimized.

2. Hitting multiple platforms from 2013 to now makes that entire concept much more challenging from a technical POV. Sure, the base PS4/XB1 supported some massive open world titles that were still technically sound, but this is exactly the type of issue that caused serious compromises on titles like Cyberpunk 2077, though fortunately the artstyle isn't anywhere near as technically ambitious and will probably scale better than those games. But if a formerly well respected developer can screw up that monumentally on a multi-generation release, I will remain skeptical until I know a lot more about the environment this title is being produced in to truly ensure quality.

3. Sonic Team has been chasing industry trends for years by other AAA titles, and when they do it, they tend to essentially create knockoffs of other genres that read like pale imitations of whatever trend that other genre had. Again, this reads like an attempt to copy the aesthetic of BOTW without necessarily focusing on the substance of what made BOTW such a high quality open world even in the first place.

3. Again, that is not to say this game is doomed from the start. We've heard word of major restructuring within Sega of Sonic Team for years now, likely with at least some intent to improve quality of the mainline releases. I'm just saying that there remains a lot more for Sonic Team to improve. How much of the game world will be relying on scripted sequences? Is this truly an open world game or just a larger scale version of the Adventure/06 model (adventure zones/action stages), if so, what makes this game better than those and not another Sonic 06 disaster? There are numerous questions that need to be answered to truly let this game prove itself.

4. Personally, and this isn't necessarily a knock against Sonic Team, I'm not even sure I like Sonic in fully open world environments with a heavy focus on nature/ruins. The art style doesn't look bad or anything, but the "stage" format the franchise had led to vivid, imaginative, and creative artstyles and cool "worlds" to explore in their own right. I loved the variety of it all. Sonic CD may well be the visual pinnacle of this with its greatly varying stages, otherwordly designs, and different time zone art styles. Even Sonic Mania, as great as it was, only came up with 4 entirely new zones, which pales in comparison to the variety of previous variety of enviornments Sonic Team tried to create in the 90s and Adventure titles. Open world games do of course have different regions, but tend to lack the changing poppy soundtrack and vastly different artistic environments that made the classic games so fun. It's the same reason I found Skyrim less exciting than Oblivion, since Skyrim's environment was a lot less varied than the previous game due to the region it was set in. Without that, to me, this game could just be a lot more boring and repetitive.


Now, if they somehow can nail this and bring 3D Sonic back to a respectable form? That'd be amazing. But it's going to take time before I'm convinced they can do that.

 

I guess they really are planing to show Frontiers and Origins gameplay at Sonic Central. I hope they will make a good time of time.

 

I wonder how much info we can take from these 4chan rumors given how some of them seemed to be actually right. And given how far back these people claimed to have tested out the game, how long has this been in development already? Like 2 years at this point?

Well 3 years is more time than Forces got (or any Sonic game really), so that, plus the fact it's finally something different and the fact that Flynn is writing and the producer is solid, I actually have some faith in this one. Or at least I want it to be good. Maybe we'll finally see an Unleashed amount of effort again?

That footage gave me early Sonic 06 (which looking back, wtf was that trailer it was so misleading) and early Sonic Boom RoL vibes, I can only hope this doesn't end up like those two did. One thing I know for sure though, I'm going to avoid the Switch version like the plague

 

Probably in 2017. I remember some leaks speculating the production started slightly before finishing Force
, but it's speculation of course, a tester shouldn't probably get that much info.

 

Well Unleashed so well enough.

I wish they'd just focus on Nintendo consoles given that's where most of the sales come from, but alas.

 

I do think that, regardless of how good the game ends up being, this is the boldest Sonic has been since Unleashed. With the advertised staff changes and a clear shift in tone and visuals clearly apparently already, I feel like this game will really wear its heart on its sleeve. That said, the above mentioned factors do inspire optimism in me. I get why others may not feel that and I think that's entirely understandable, but I think time is the biggest factor here. The (at this point verified) initial 4chan leak tells us that Sonic Team at least hasn't been dicking around remaking their engine again for three years, so hopefully this game will have had the time it really needs the gestate and be developed in a healthy environment so it is able to come out without the comprises that have plagued the Sonic games crunched out since Unleashed.

Anyway, I personally think the world will be teeming with enemies, but that they've just not been shown yet for whatever reason. Rewatching the trailer, there are clearly some areas that funnel Sonic onto a set path that would allow for more carefully authored encounters. Possible reasons for not showing us these enemies would be that they wanted to give us an unobstructed view of the environment itself, or maybe they're creates of SAGE that are more mystical in nature as opposed to the standard Egg Pawns (not that I don't think they'll be technology based), and they want to keep these aspect under wraps until late on when they're ready to show us more about the game and SAGE itself.

 

Unleashed was also 2 completely different games done by different teams. Sega no longer does the "less powerful console gets the B version" thing now it's the actual game + mobile game.

I love the Switch don't get me wrong but the power issues. Nintendo, you need to beef up your consoles this "one generation behind graphically" makes multiplatform games impossible. Either the Switch version sucks ass or it drags the more powerful console versions down with it.

 

It seens Tomoya Ohtani will be in charge of the soundtrack again. Hoping we will get the same atmospheric vibes we got from Sonic 2006 and Sonic Unleashed. And since Hideaki Kobayashi returned in Sonic Colors: Ultimate, hope he will do some epic songs for Frontiers too.

 

If the switch can run Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, Sonic has no excuse.

 

@Sonic5993 there's a difference though. Those two games were Nintendo exclusives (I'd say switch exclusive but Breath of the Wild did come out on the Wii U). They're flagship series on their own consoles. Sonic has multiple platforms to deal with. Now if Sega still made consoles, maybe then the situation would be slightly similar, but even then not really because Nintendo has more money than Sega.

I'm curious what the tone of this game will be like. With Flynn writing we have the chance for a decent story finally. Maybe we'll have the more serious tone we hoped Forces was going to have (that instead ended up just being "Tonal Whiplash: the game"). He does a great job in the comics making Eggman seem threatening