The Sonic Frontiers *SPOILER* Thread (With Unmarked Spoilers)

Nah, they set up the Master Emerald as being a complete unknown to the Ancients that drags them to Earth because the Chaos Emeralds are drawn to it, so either the Ancients lost track of all knowledge on the Master Emerald after dropping it on Earth one day, or the Emeralds origins are still so much further back than even the Ancients.

 

I've posted this before, but I do remember Sonic Team had Chaos and the Chao classified as aliens, and hinted at the emeralds being from space.

I actually don't remember where I saw this, but do remember being surprised that info was gone when Sonic Channel was made and characters got updated profiles.

Since this is going on memory and I have no source then obviously take this with some skepticism, but I do think the emeralds have always had a space origin.

As for the Gaia issue. from what I remember the origins of the temple are up in the air. You could always say a civilization made them after the Ancients arrived in order to help Light Gaia.

Even though Eggman says in the logs that the Ancients only had a presence in Starfall Islands we know that's not true since we see a Koco shell and a portal in Sky Sanctuary. So the temples could be from them too.

 

The Master Emerald issue is a mystery left in to set up a future story, which is good because I wouldn't want the mystique of the Emeralds to be gone in a single game.

If the Ancients made the Chaos Emeralds, then what is the Master Emerald? Why did they react to it? Why can it neutralize them? Questions for later.

 

I'm still unsure where people are getting "The Ancients made the Chaos Emeralds" from, can someone direct me to where it was said?

 

Like I said, it's basically just an implied thing. The Ancients had the Chaos Emeralds before they left their world, so everyone including the characters assumes the emeralds came from the Ancients. The Master Emerald's mere existence throws a wrench into that, but nothing ever firmly confirms either-or.

Enough groundwork to expound upon again in the future, but also set enough for some people to probably settle for.

 

It could be possible that like in the old Archie canon, there are Chaos Emeralds all over the universe.

 

Shhhhhh... the Pendersman need not hear your words...

Still, could be possible.

Also, if they DID create the Chaos Emeralds... Sonic the Comic did it first.

Spoiler

 

I pretty much feel the same way. I'm wondering if I'm being too harsh, but the game is just rough all around the edges. There's a good core here. I like general movement in the open world, but dislike the world design and cyberspace stages quite a lot.

The boss battles are abysmal, and I pretty much feel the same way about the titan battles falling to pieces (what you experienced with camera issues was very similar to me). I'm not a huge fan of how repetitive the first Super Sonic battle was either. Sure, it was a spectacle but it honestly just felt monotonous more than anything.

I'd love to see what others see in this game, as maybe I'm just too jaded here. But idk I feel like a sequel could fix most of my issues with the game, but as it is this just makes me want to replay the Adventure and Boost games instead of playing more. I'm not kidding, playing 2-1 just made me want to turn on my Xbox and boot into Sonic Unleashed over playing more.

Maybe I'll just take a break and see if I can go into this in a few days with a fresh mind. As it is I'm just more letdown than anything, and I was pretty cautiously optimistic to begin with based off the trailers.

 

The solution to this was to just play through the story, despite the fact that on islands one and two you can get all the emeralds from the shrines before talking to Amy and Knuckles...but not the third island. I could have been done with this game on Switch two days ago most likely if I had knew.

Anyway, on the final island now.

 

Holy SHIT dude this music is UNHINGED.

 

Honestly, I see a lot of the potential in the game's systems and engine. A bit more stability and polish and it would be excellent for a basis, but a best case scenario would have Sega doing something they seem to refuse to do: abandon 2D sections entirely and cut down on the automation. For a game that's at its most fun when Sonic gets to really let loose, every single individual spring, dash panel or rail booster eventually just takes control away from you and cripples your flow entirely for yet another 2D challenge that you have to fail or backtrack on to be free again.

Even the more precision platforming sequences are filled with wall dash panels and air boosters guiding every thing you do because they don't really trust players (though players and journalists are notoriously dumb so hey), and the parts that require you to, say, manually climb a wall are in and of themselves an individual gameplay challenge. It's really hilarious how that works out.

 

Just beat the game and wow that ending. I did not expect to get so emotional. Plus the song in the end was really touching. I hope SEGA does not do a 180 and instead build on what was good and remove what wasnt as good.

 

There is the potential for some wild skips by launching yourself off rails, the increased vertical range of the homing attack, the air boost’s vertical gain, etc. Using those techniques in tandem gives you a lot of opportunities to play with the design. I think I did fewer than half of the mini challenges (for tokens not the actual challenge sign things) the intended way. The majority of my time in each island was finding fun ways to fling myself from one memory token to the next. Trying to pro gamer move ™️ my way through the towers on the fourth island gave me a really cool sense of vertigo. The designers gave good players a lot of opportunities to flex their skills across a lot of the environmental challenges and I loved it.

I must say the last island felt a bit rushed story-wise. Did we get introduced to that final titan before the battle at all? I remember that Sonic thought there were 3, and then suddenly we were getting geared up for the fourth and I don’t recall where that was introduced. And why do the ancients look like Chaos? Was that ever brought up and I missed it?

(Edit: I looked it up. I haven’t collected Eggman memos so I didn’t know the Chaos relation was addressed. As for the first point, I guess eating dinner while playing made me miss some stuff lol).

Also, I’m a big shmup fan so seeing the Ikaruga-lite hacking mini-game return as the final boss had me grinning like an idiot. It reminded me of the last ending of Nier Automata.

I still have to do the fishing on Chaos Island and grind out some stats (being able to increase only one ring/speed level at a time was stupid) and get the phantom rush achievement (I should have done that prior to leveling up so high) but otherwise I’m done after 23 hours. Story completed around 18. Really respectable numbers for a Sonic game.

 

I'm still wondering what's up with that, especially from a design angle.

Chaos being a mutant Chao composed of water makes sense. Chao are a water life form, have a water drop head shape, the gardens always have water, and SA1 had a water ripple texture on their bodies.

So it makes sense Chaos mutated into a full water creature.

But the Kocos whole theme is stone, so it's weird that their original forms are made out of water/liquid. Kind of would've preferred a similar Chaos looking stone creature.

Or did whatever affected them made some Ancients into Chao and others into Kocos? And these Chao stayed with the Master Emerald? And a Chao managing to regain something close to their original form through a mutation?

Honestly, love that we have new lore in this game.

 

I was not a big fan of the final bosses “true form” and I hope from its implications it comes back in a direct sequel, because as it stands The End is currently the primary antagonist (retconned in) for the adventure series as well as frontiers. They have a strong setup here for their next game. I just hope they don’t ruin it with writing from the last decade.

 

That last phase in general caught me really off guard and while i did end up getting kinda into it, Im in the same boat, it was weird and kinda took me out of it. But considering the post credits scene, I almost wonder if we're going to get some sort of post release story dlc or if the next game will be directly impacted by frontiers

 

Managed to climb to the top of this satellite in Ares Island. You clearly aren't really meant to be up here, and there's no reward, but at the same time, the game never stops you from using your ingenuity to explore like this even if you're not really meant to do it. It's so much damn fun, I love how rewarding this game feels to play.

 

Still on the final island and found Big. Seems he has unlimited Lost Koco so I just maxed out my speed (it was already at 80) and rings (I was level 2 the whole game).

The max amount of fish tokens you can have is 999 and on the final island going through the fish once will almost get you there. Catch two more and you will get 999 tokens (the actual number would be 1,000 if it kept going), so I bought all the vault keys I needed from him and then loaded up on Lost Koco.

I still have enough purple coins to max out my tokens again so I'll probably do that and buy memory tokens until they are sold out.

Big is literally the reason you only have do two cyber stages in the entire game so the first two are forced upon you.

 

Yeah, I get the feeling Cyloops and Big's fishing bribery are gonna be key for speedrunners to really break progression in half. Though I also saw through some online posts that the game doesn't seem to try to care for story events involving the Titans, because someone was claiming they used a spring enemy on the far east side of Ares Island to enter the Wyvern's area and skipped having to do the story to get in there.

 

Finished the game today and decided to replay every Cyberspace level and write them and the designs they're using down, for those interested

Spoiler: Wall of Text

1-1 - Green Hill: Windmill Isle Day Act 1 [Sonic Unleashed]
1-2 - Sky Sanctuary: Windmill Isle Day Act 2 (3D) [Sonic Unleashed]
1-3 - City: Original
1-4 - Green Hill: Green Hill Act 2 (3D) [Sonic Generations]
1-5 - Chemical Plant: Chemical Plant Act 2 (3D) [Sonic Generations]
1-6 - Green Hill: Green Hill Act 1 [Sonic Generations]
1-7 - City: City Escape [Sonic Adventure 2]

2-1 - Green Hill: Green Hill Act 2 (2D) [Sonic Generations]
2-2 - Sky Sanctuary: Dragon Road Day Act 3 [Sonic Unleashed]
2-3 - Chemical Plant: Original
2-4 - Chemical Plant: Radical Highway [Sonic Adventure 2]
2-5 - Sky Sanctuary: Sky Sanctuary Act 2 (2D) [Sonic Generations]
2-6 - Green Hill: Sky Rail [Sonic Adventure 2]
2-7 - Sky Sanctuary: Sky Sanctuary Act 1 [Sonic Generations]

3-1 - Green Hill: Green Forest [Sonic Adventure 2]
3-2 - Green Hill: Savannah Citadel Day Act 1 (2D) [Sonic Unleashed]
3-3 - Sky Sanctuary: Sky Sanctuary Act 2 (3D) [Sonic Generations]
3-4 - Windmill Isle Day Act 3 [2D] [Sonic Unleashed]
3-5 - Green Hill: Savannah Citadel Day Act 2 [Sonic Unleashed]
3-6 - Sky Sanctuary: Rooftop Run Day Act 2 [Sonic Unleashed]
3-7 - Chemcial Plant: Chemical Plant Act 2 (2D) [Sonic Generations]

4-1 - Chemical Plant: Metal Harbor [Sonic Adventure 2]
4-2 - City: Original
4-3 - Chemical Plant: Original
4-4 - City: Original
4-5 - Green Hill: Original
4-6 - Chemical Plant: Chemical Plant Act 1 [Sonic Generations]
4-7 - City: Original
4-8 - Chemical Plant: Original
4-9 - City: Original