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Pre-Release Sonic Frontiers - Pre-release Discussion Thread (UPDATE: new overview trailer, releasing November 8th)

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Although I don't think it looks too bad (especially compared to the likes of Forces), you can't have your "Breath of the Wild"-moment by copying Zelda's "Breath of the Wild"-moment xD . BotW is a realisation of the original vision of Zelda: going back to it's roots in a thoughtful fashion, and building from there while jettisoning decades of baggage.

Let's look at another IP's BotW-moment: Star Wars. I'm not much of a Star Wars fan, but the first season of Mandalorian was a BotW-moment for me: jettisoning unneeded baggage, reconnecting with the original inspiration and executing with precision.

I'd love for Sonic (and other IP's that are astray cough cough Star Trek cough cough) to go back to the drawing board in this way, but it requires self-evaluation and thoughtfulness, and that's apparently hard in the AAA space.
 
I want a Sonic game that is entirely Generations 3D levels. Rooftop Run Modern is my favorite level in any Sonic game.
 
I’m actually quite optimistic about the gameplay and I’m sure I’ll end up enjoying the game as usual with 3D Sonic games, but I’m just concerned about how SEGA will handle the Switch version. They really should be prioritizing the version that will end up selling the most…
 
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Red Monster said:
I want a Sonic game that is entirely Generations 3D levels. Rooftop Run Modern is my favorite level in any Sonic game.
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Me too, but if it was financially viable or they still have the talent we would have gotten it by now

Their level design practices worry me considering how central it is to the games... between what I learned about heroes in that doc recently and what we know about forces...
 
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The first thing that stands out to me is that turning and low-speed control actually seem pretty good. That was always a weakness of the boost games, with Forces and its weird auto acceleration making that worse, so seeing it better here is an encouraging sign. I imagine that Sonic will be fun to control alone.

But I left feeling kinda...nothing? It feels empty? The un-stylized realistic presentation and the calmer music feels like a total mismatch to the Sonic character. Maybe if we had one or the other, like the realistic look with music with more energy, it'd be fine? The trailer also doesn't do a good job of presenting the goal or focus. Like you're collecting these heart things for...something. We know it's to unlock levels based on the leaks, but the way it's presented here, it just feels a little disjointed. No guidance through the world, flinging around through these environments to get the things. I don't know. I want to like it more but I feel very little. It's fine. But like...just fine.
 
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Even the animations just don't feel there... it's what's giving it the fan project feel. Things feel glitchy, lacking polish and "love". I dunno... I'm hopeful...
 
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Goddammit, this looks terrible.

Team Sonic still insists on using Boost as the main mode of gaining speed or going up on places.The obvious answer to making Sonic games exciting again is making his whole moveset revolve around momentum building. You would need to speed down a slope to gain enough speed to run upwards a mountain, or use that speed to be fast enough to ram enemies or obstacles, or keep running forward and keep gaining speed as you jump between platforms and have enough momentum to be able to make the final jump.

But no,instead they prefer to jump step on a booster and have the game play automatically for you. For fucks sake Sega.You have been doing that for 25 years.Isn't it obvious that you have to change the game fundamentally?

And on top of the game revolving around momentum, you could give sonic abilities that inventivizes that.You could give him a way to "store" speed(Think of Flash).And you store it by running above a certain speed.Every one second above that speed, you store 3% of a gauge.And when you want to go even faster, or want to speed up if you slowed down, you can press a button and get a boost that consumes a portion of the gauge(Think of it as using nitro in racing games).

Building the game around momentum enables the devs to create smarter puzzles and platforming, and gives the player a better sense of control. Instead of this bullshit boost Sega keeps pumping out.
 
chocolate_supra said:
I'm sorry, everyone.

I finally got a chance to sit and watch the video and I have to admit, it looks like Sega reached into my head and dug out the Sonic game I've been dreaming of.

Yeah, the control looks kinda janky right now but overall this is so close to what I've had in my head that I'm convinced Sega actually drew out my thoughts and made them into a game.

So to those of yall who really don't like the look of this, it's all my fault. I manifested this.
lol I'm actually not sorry at all 😁
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I just wish the world wasn’t so empty looking. The snippet before with Sonic interacted with enemies interested me more than this. I’m not against an open world Sonic game, but I think if this is how they’re advertising it I’m a bit worried. I’d love nothing more than to be wrong though!
 
Oh no lmao

I mean it looks okay. It's conceptually interesting, just...messy. And plain. Why is it so messy?

I can see that pop-in becoming a real problem if forward progression is based around these tiny puzzles throughout the overworld.
 
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Actually it doesnt look bad for me. Not BotW great, but not bad also.

But serious question. Where are the enemies?
 
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Nautilus said:
Goddammit, this looks terrible.

Team Sonic still insists on using Boost as the main mode of gaining speed or going up on places.The obvious answer to making Sonic games exciting again is making his whole moveset revolve around momentum building. You would need to speed down a slope to gain enough speed to run upwards a mountain, or use that speed to be fast enough to ram enemies or obstacles, or keep running forward and keep gaining speed as you jump between platforms and have enough momentum to be able to make the final jump.

But no,instead they prefer to jump step on a booster and have the game play automatically for you. For fucks sake Sega.You have been doing that for 25 years.Isn't it obvious that you have to change the game fundamentally?

And on top of the game revolving around momentum, you could give sonic abilities that inventivizes that.You could give him a way to "store" speed(Think of Flash).And you store it by running above a certain speed.Every one second above that speed, you store 3% of a gauge.And when you want to go even faster, or want to speed up if you slowed down, you can press a button and get a boost that consumes a portion of the gauge(Think of it as using nitro in racing games).

Building the game around momentum enables the devs to create smarter puzzles and platforming, and gives the player a better sense of control. Instead of this bullshit boost Sega keeps pumping out.
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i just want a simple plaformer like the original sonic adventure. where u had different paths of taking to reach the goal.
 
Brock Reiher said:
the people are already clamoring for Forces 2, just took 24 hours
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Even if it’s an awful game it will still be better than the case of getting a real Forces sequel. I think this is going to be just another generic open world type of game like Biomutant but with Sonic on it and a couple of Sonic things
 
Blue Monty said:
Even if it’s an awful game it will still be better than the case of getting a real Forces sequel. I think this is going to be just another generic open world type of game like Biomutant but with Sonic on it and a couple of Sonic things
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Are you sure? It looks like one of the basic moves kills your aereal momentum lol
 
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Brock Reiher said:
the people are already clamoring for Forces 2, just took 24 hours
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The 'platforming' parts look like it already is Forces 2. I imagine the mini-levels the portals in the leak take you to will also play more like Forces over Unleashed day stages. Drifting seems to not be a thing.
 
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Perspective of a non-Sonic fan: Yeah I feel like the momentum here could be better, the speed of gameplay just feels wonky and I feel like just committing to something more momentum based would be better. Zooming around the world like that would have been a blast, as it stands it looks...ok?

That being said, open-world platformers are fun so I'm still at least somewhat interested
 
As someone who overall enjoyed Forces, I would welcome a Forces 2 with open arms, lol. The Avatar deserves to be brought back, and I loved the concept of Wispons. I could do without Classic Sonic, though. Give me more Sonic and Avatar acts instead and throw a bigger budget at the game (and keep out the old writers that seem to be gone now, thankfully), and I think a Forces 2 would be pretty great.
 
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After watching it again the performance really stands out. Lots of drops in frame rate and pop in is pretty bad. If this is the current gen build and I’m sure it is, I can’t imagine what the Switch version will look like
 
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I dunno if I should make a thread to elaborate my thoughts on this topic but I think this is a prime example of how BOTW’s influence on the industry isn’t that positive

I’m not even a Sonic fan, I only really played the first two games and haven’t touched the 3D ones. Even then, I can tell that this trailer has very little to do with Sonic’s identity. Now visually it’s very obvious that they hired that man and everything but why does the series known for bangers has this ambient piano music? Why is the setting these bland landscapes featuring random technology here and there?

Seriously, it’s just sad to see how homogenized games seem to become, or open world games at least. Where are the new cohesive, original settings? Nah, let’s just put in empty landscapes and have that BOTW box art shot on the trailer. I know HD games are more expensive to make in everything but like… the various games that took inspiration from Mario 64 and OOT during the late 90s and early 00s had vastly different settings and gameplay structures. Now, every open world game trying hard to get that “BOTW moment” (worst expression ever, won’t even elaborate) seem to take for granted that having a huge world size and big landscapes will systematically excite fans.

So that 4chan leak is pretty much true, we haven’t seen the linear stages yet but even if they are good and have good music, it’s still disappointing how it seems like the game’s progression seems to be exactly like other open worlds. You know the meme with the lady eating pancakes, except that the pancakes are side quests? Well that’s how BOTW-adjacent games feel, you get sidetracked and you get a reward for doing a bite-sized challenge. People hate Ubisoft’s open world because they are boring and extremely formulaic. Nothing is fun in Assassin’s Creed (dunno about post-Origins), hold one button to parkour, spam counter/upgrade your equipment to trivialize combat, do some boring stealth/tailing missions, rinse and repeat. BOTW had towers too but it had fun things to do and didn’t litter the map with icons so it was better recieved. I’m playing Immortals right now and while that game has heavy BOTW inspiration, it was well received because you finally had a Ubisoft open world game that had fun videogamey things to do. I’m at my third area now and while the game is fun, the repetition is definitely getting apparent. Now Sonic seems to be going (fast) in the same path. It’s just kind of disappointing that so many different series seem to have this exact structure, open world with some kind of micro rewards. It honestly dilutes the appeal of non-linear progression in the first place.

That being said, even though it looks like a fangame, even though some people are roasting it. Unless it drops the ball bigtime, it will probably be the first Sonic game in forever to have a green Metacritic score, as the latest Sonic games are on par with Kanye’s latest albums. I haven’t played Arceus but that game got good reviews after being constantly roasted on its graphics because people like the gameplay loop. Sonic Frontiers might do the same as it follows game design trends that are proven to be successful. Even then, as I said it’s still disappointing how formulaic these open world shifts seem to be

Btw since this isn’t an outsourced game that uses an engine that doesn’t support the Switch, that version will probably be fine. The game isn’t even pretty and seems to tolerate having obvious pop-in, 60 FPS Switch version is possible. If it has bad technical issues then Sega are truly beyond washed

Also that last tile puzzle was cute, liked those in Zelda Oracle of Ages
 
Yoshifan31 said:
I dunno if I should make a thread to elaborate my thoughts on this topic but I think this is a prime example of how BOTW’s influence on the industry isn’t that positive
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You make some interesting points, but I'm not sure if Frontiers is the best game to showcase this. Sonic has been a trend chaser for a long time now. Remember the Shadow the Hedgehog game? Gritty shooters are popular so let's ditch Sonic's identity and graft a really bad attempt at copying popular stuff onto a Sonic game. That's not to say I don't think your post has any validity, but Sonic's been recklessly jumping on trends at the cost of his own identity for 20 years now, and then really half-assing their copy of those trends. This is just what Sonic does.

And for as much as people are making a big deal of how the realistic environment clashes with Sonic's colorful cartoony style, that's been the norm since he first went into 3D pretty much. Adventure 2 had a story about government conspiracies and an evil hedgehog wanting revenge for a 12-year-old girl getting gunned down. It's often been said that 06's story and setting seemed like it came from Final Fantasy rather than Sonic. And of course Shadow the Hedgehog is the most egregious example.
 
EtherPenguin said:
You make some interesting points, but I'm not sure if Frontiers is the best game to showcase this. Sonic has been a trend chaser for a long time now. Remember the Shadow the Hedgehog game? Gritty shooters are popular so let's ditch Sonic's identity and graft a really bad attempt at copying popular stuff onto a Sonic game. That's not to say I don't think your post has any validity, but Sonic's been recklessly jumping on trends at the cost of his own identity for 20 years now, and then really half-assing their copy of those trends. This is just what Sonic does.

And for as much as people are making a big deal of how the realistic environment clashes with Sonic's colorful cartoony style, that's been the norm since he first went into 3D pretty much. Adventure 2 had a story about government conspiracies and an evil hedgehog wanting revenge for a 12-year-old girl getting gunned down. It's often been said that 06's story and setting seemed like it came from Final Fantasy rather than Sonic. And of course Shadow the Hedgehog is the most egregious example.
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Sonic Lost World was trying to completely copy Mario Galaxy 1 and 2. Everything from spherical short planets, to actual level gimmicks being lifted wholesale.

They also tried to completely copy the New Super Mario Bros series with Sonic the Hedgehog 4 as well.

It really isn't anything new at all with Sonic Team.
 
I can't deny I loled when the trailer started with a BotW-style piano. I then loled again when the classic Sonic sound effects played over the piano in a way that couldn't fit less if it tried. I had my final lol when they showed that puzzles literally have a sign with a "?" next to them.
 
Lozjam said:
Sonic Lost World was trying to completely copy Mario Galaxy 1 and 2. Everything from spherical short planets, to actual level gimmicks being lifted wholesale.

They also tried to completely copy the New Super Mario Bros series with Sonic the Hedgehog 4 as well.

It really isn't anything new at all with Sonic Team.
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At this point they should just ask Nintendo to make Sonic games 😭
 
It's sorta hard to tell without playing it myself but it looks to me like the movement in this game is all kinds of borked. It looks so stiff and it looks like it's entirely relying on rails and springs and the such to guide players' momentum instead of actually achieving any of it naturally through the design of the world.

I'm actually weirdly on board with the rest. I think the execution is odd - it looks like a bunch of random obstacles placed inelegantly around a completely unrelated plain - but at least it looks like there's plenty to do and at least from the little bit we see it maybe doesn't look too cookie cutter-ish in content. But impressions I get of the movement completely kill it for me to the point where it just sorta looks bad.
 
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It took me less than 2 minutes to stop watching. This will fail big time. I hope to be proved wrong, but I dont think it will be the case.
 
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EtherPenguin said:
You make some interesting points, but I'm not sure if Frontiers is the best game to showcase this. Sonic has been a trend chaser for a long time now. Remember the Shadow the Hedgehog game? Gritty shooters are popular so let's ditch Sonic's identity and graft a really bad attempt at copying popular stuff onto a Sonic game. That's not to say I don't think your post has any validity, but Sonic's been recklessly jumping on trends at the cost of his own identity for 20 years now, and then really half-assing their copy of those trends. This is just what Sonic does.

And for as much as people are making a big deal of how the realistic environment clashes with Sonic's colorful cartoony style, that's been the norm since he first went into 3D pretty much. Adventure 2 had a story about government conspiracies and an evil hedgehog wanting revenge for a 12-year-old girl getting gunned down. It's often been said that 06's story and setting seemed like it came from Final Fantasy rather than Sonic. And of course Shadow the Hedgehog is the most egregious example.
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You’re right but even then I feel like those games still looked like they came from the same series. They are also certainly more visually unique than… this. It’s just that the whole open world/BOTW of ____ trend is a pet peeve of mine and the fact that iconic series are chasing these trends to the point of having the blandest settings is just… sad

Like, I thought the whole “make Pokemon BOTW to save the series” discourse was insufferable because it considers open world structure as some kind of panacea, they said Game Freak needed to get with the times and make an open world game. Now Arceus was still successful despite being roasted for its graphics because catching Pokemon is a winning formula. It made sense in terms of game design to make an open world Pokemon game because why not, this series was already one of the most formulaic out there and this kind of structure usually pairs with adventure games or RPGs

Sonic being an open world game with shrines and towers (also there’s supposed to be xp and skill trees) just sounds depressing. The series’ identity and aesthetics are about stuff like being hip, hyperactive, too cool for school, edgy, it’s supposed to be every tween’s dream game. The trend chasing here is just too shameless, it’s like they have no integrity. They could have properly tried to make a good new 3D game that would justify Sonic being a rival to Mario in many different ways. They could have expanded upon whatever 3D game is the most loved (from what I know they never put in the effort to do so). They could have made a crossover adventure with Mario and print tons of money (why do they only meet in the Olympics and Smash). Basically they could have took the time to make a good 3D platformer before totally switching genres and design philosophies. In the end, they opted with these ideas that might as well come from execs or an AI that based their decisions on the amount of clicks BOTW and UE demo videos got, resulting in a game with one of the blandest settings I’ve ever seen. Again, even if the game turns out fun, it’s just disheartening to see games settling with sparse landscapes, the exact same open world gameplay loop and overall bland aesthetic choices. It makes trend chasing seem a lot more shameless and discussion about games way more cynical, which is pretty boring. It’s not cool when a new game shows its setting and most people can just sum it up by saying it looks like stock assets or discount BOTW, especially when the series is known to be everything but bland. Games can be way more interesting and distinct from one another
 
Blue Monty said:
At this point they should just ask Nintendo to make Sonic games 😭
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This.. is not a bad idea. Can Nintendo buy sega? Lol

totofogo said:
hopefully we see an enemy.. lol
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I thought there was a moment where we saw an enemy in today’s trailer? There was something on a bridge that seemed to aggro when Sonic ran by and started to give chase, but the player paid no attention to it and Sonic easily outran it.
 
Red Monster said:
I thought there was a moment where we saw an enemy in today’s trailer? There was something on a bridge that seemed to aggro when Sonic ran by and started to give chase, but the player paid no attention to it and Sonic easily outran it.
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Oh, I missed it then lol

EDIT: oh wow, an abstract shape :/
 
Is it giving Sega too much credit to think they might have put it out there this openly so that they can watch what weak points the fans point out and focus on them for polishing over the next few months?
 
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