Megathread Sonic Frontiers (2022) | MT | General Discussion (DO NOT discuss leaks here please)

[Kuzu]

4 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

It's a sign that they need to change formula. The boost formula is unsustainable because the games are too short, and they need to put extra content to compensate (such as the werehog, classic Sonic, or the filler stages on Sonic Colors). And because they need to build a lot of assets for stages that last 2 minutes. It's just a waste of resources.

I'm sorry, but it couldn't stand another Sonic Generations, the game only last 2 hours to be beaten, the story is AWFUL, and every thing was recycle from previous games. Sonic Generations is almost as bad as Sonic Forces to me, it's better because the gameplay is great, and the level design is high quality, but it's just as bland.

It's already been leaked that Sonic Frontiers occupies about 80gb of disk space. It's more than games like The Witcher 3. I hope the game has a massive world with a lot of new and interesting environments.

They've been padding games out with filler since Sonic Adventure dude, this is not a "Boost" problem.

 

And if you're gonna judge the quality of a game on it's length as opposed to it's content, then don't be surprised if Sonic keeps getting mediocre and terrible review scores. 

[light-gaia]

6 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

They've been padding games out with filler since Sonic Adventure dude. 

Sonic Adventure was more a matter of experimentation, than a matter of padding. They changed Knuckles and Tails gameplays compared to Sonic because their move sets broke the 3D level design. This was confirmed in interviews. Also, the Sonic campaign is the longest, the other campaigns are very short and feel more like extras, than something like the werehog that's clearly trying to make the game longer.

6 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

And if you're gonna judge the quality of a game on it's length as opposed to it's content, then don't be surprised if Sonic keeps getting mediocre and terrible review scores. 

This is a very weird argument, you are acting like it's impossible to develop a Sonic game that has a decent length, and that's good. It's like when Generations fans act like we don't have the right to care about the stories.

[MH MD]

1 minute ago, light-gaia said:

Sonic Adventure was more a matter of experimentation, than a matter of padding. They changed Knuckles and Tails gameplays compared to Sonic because their move sets broke the 3D level design. This was confirmed in interviews. Also, the Sonic campaign is the longest, the other campaigns are very short and feel more like extras, than something like the werehog that's clearly trying to make the game longer.

They can both experiment and pad the games,They felt the need of making 6 characters cause more = bigger = better, also you could argue the hub-worlds are a form of padding, and it did it's job of making the game feels bigger back in the day, cause you can get easily lost in the world instead of going from one stage to another, it doesn't matter that the other campaigns are "shorter", that's still like 2 or 3 times the total of the game if it was just Sonic

 

Then you get some really obvious cases of padding like Sonic Heroes, where it demands you to basically finish the game 4 times to finish the story, or Shadow the Hedgehog that needs you to finish it 10 (!) times to reach the final boss, these were all before boost was even a thing, i would say the boost games are actually tame compared to those, Both Gen and Colors can be finished faster than heroes, Unleashed probably close 

[Kuzu]

In every single Sonic game since 1998, to 100% the game, you are required to play through the game with every single available character. They are not "extras", they are required parts of the game that players must use in order to 100% it. Those interviews confirmed that they added those characters because the games would be "too short" otherwise. It was as much padding as much as it was Sonic Team just getting high off of experimenting. 

 

7 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

This is a very weird argument, you are acting like it's impossible to develop a Sonic game that has a decent length, and that's good. It's like when Generations fans act like we don't have the right to care about the stories.

There hasn't been a SINGLE Sonic game with padded content that's ever reviewed well past the first two Adventure games, and even those got steadily worse reviews over time.  

So I have absolutely no reason to assume that to be the case, because it hasn't been done. Conversely, the Sonic games that are simple and to the point, tend to be the ones that actually review well and people like. Crazy I know, people like video games that don't waste their time. 

 

 

Look, I know Sonic fans have had it out for video game critics and non-fans for how they treat the content this fanbase obsesses over, but some of you really need to evaluate how this series has used content versus how other franchises do it and then start making comparisons. People don't just hate Sonic games for no reason, they have legitimate issues that kind of prevent people from liking them that have yet to be addressed. 

[light-gaia]

20 minutes ago, MH MD said:

They can both experiment and pad the games,They felt the need of making 6 characters cause more = bigger = better, also you could argue the hub-worlds are a form of padding, and it did it's job of making the game feels bigger back in the day, cause you can get easily lost in the world instead of going from one stage to another, it doesn't matter that the other campaigns are "shorter", that's still like 2 or 3 times the total of the game if it was just Sonic

They can, but I don't think this was the case with Sonic Adventure. The hub worlds serve to make the game feel more like an RPG. But my point here is not defending the Adventure formula. I have said that both the boost formula, and the adventure formulas aren't perfect, and that Sonic Team needs to change some aspects in order to evolve the franchise going forward. One of these aspects is the bad combat mechanics, another is the length and the padding.

20 minutes ago, MH MD said:

Then you get some really obvious cases of padding like Sonic Heroes, where it demands you to basically finish the game 4 times to finish the story, or Shadow the Hedgehog that needs you to finish it 10 (!) times to reach the final boss, these were all before boost was even a thing, i would say the boost games are actually tame compared to those, Both Gen and Colors can be finished faster than heroes, Unleashed probably close 

If you exclude the padding, the length of Sonic Heroes is still comparable to other platformers of that time. Specially if you consider that the game isn't as easy as Generations or Forces and the stages are very long. The game would still be a decent length If you compare Sonic Heroes with games like Mario Sunshine, for example. Platformers don't have the same length as RPGs, or games like that, they are shorter games, but Sonic recent games are too short compared to the average, and the problem is getting worse because the standard of the industry now is more content. The boost formula only makes things more difficult in this regard.

But I think you are missing my point, I'm not defending any previous Sonic formula.
 

17 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

In every single Sonic game since 1998, to 100% the game, you are required to play through the game with every single available character. They are not "extras", they are required parts of the game that players must use in order to 100% it. Those interviews confirmed that they added those characters because the games would be "too short" otherwise. It was as much padding as much as it was Sonic Team just getting high off of experimenting.

All the campaigns besides Sonic's are very short. For example, Amy only has 3 stages, Big campaign only last 10 minutes to beat.

 

17 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

There hasn't been a SINGLE Sonic game with padded content that's ever reviewed well past the first two Adventure games, and even those got steadily worse reviews over time.  

So I have absolutely no reason to assume that to be the case, because it hasn't been done. Conversely, the Sonic games that are simple and to the point, tend to be the ones that actually review well and people like. Crazy I know, people like video games that don't waste their time. 

 

Look, I know Sonic fans have had it out for video game critics and non-fans for how they treat the content this fanbase obsesses over, but some of you really need to evaluate how this series has used content versus how other franchises do it and then start making comparisons. People don't just hate Sonic games for no reason, they have legitimate issues that kind of prevent people from liking them that have yet to be addressed. 

 

But I'm not saying Frontiers needs to have padding, I'm saying they need to change Sonic's core 3D gameplay formula, so they wouldn't need to add padding to the games in order to they have a decent length.

 

[Kuzu]

5 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

All the campaigns besides Sonic's are very short. For example, Amy only has 3 stages, Big campaign only last 10 minutes to beat.

 

They are still, by definition, padding. 

5 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

But I'm not saying Frontiers need to have padding, I'm saying they need to change Sonic's core 3D gameplay formula, so they wouldn't need to add padding to the games in order to they have a decent length.

 

 

That generally requires far more resources to accommodate for Sonic's speed. 

But regardless, you're treating a short game as some unforgivable sin of game design. Like how long do you even expect Sonic games to last??? Most of them aren't any longer than just a few hours anyway. 

[Wraith]

This is a 5 hour game.

 

Short length would be a nonissue if the mechanics were better.

[light-gaia]

12 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

They are still, by definition, padding.

The amount of main content in Sonic Adventure is still decent for its time. Again, if you exclude all alternative campaigns, and compare Sonic's campaign length to other 3D platformers of that time (PS1, N64, etc.), Sonic Adventure is above the average in terms of content. This is not the case of Sonic Generations that takes about 2 hours to be beaten during a generation when games were much more longer than that and including the padding! It's just pathetic. I'm sorry, but it is.

12 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

That generally requires far more resources to accommodate for Sonic's speed. 

But regardless, you're treating a short game as some unforgivable sin of game design. Like how long do you even expect Sonic games to last??? Most of them aren't any longer than just a few hours anyway. 

The Adventure formula demands less resources because Sonic moves slower than games like Unleashed, so the developers don't need to build so many assets, and they can reuse these assets more efficiently. It's possible to develop a Sonic gameplay that uses better the 3D environment without wasting all the resources like the boost games do.

8 minutes ago, Wraith said:

This is a 5 hour game.

 

Short length would not be an issue if the mechanics were better.

Sonic Mania is a 2D pixel art game that cost about 20 dollars, it's not a triple A full price game. And, Sonic Mania isn't as short to beat if you aren't a skilled player. A lot of people take much more time to beat Sonic Mania. Furthermore, Mania has other playable characters, modes, bonus, etc. You should also consider that Mania is a classic-style game, so it has the amount of content expected for a Genesis game, not a modern game released in 2022.

Bringing Sonic Mania as an example only makes things worse for Sonic Generations. A low budget indie game is longer and has more content than a 3D entry in the series.

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

Sonic Mania is a 2D pixel art game that cost about 20 dollars, it's not a triple A full price game. And, Sonic Mania isn't as short to beat if you aren't a skilled player. A lot of people take much more time to beat Sonic Mania. Furthermore, Mania has other playable characters, modes, bonus, etc. You should also consider that Mania is a classic-style game, so it has the amount of content expected for a Genesis game, not a modern game released in 2022.

Bringing Sonic Mania as an example only makes things worse for Sonic Generations. A low budget indie game is longer and has more content than a 3D entry in the series.

My point was that coming at any of the Sonic games for length is missing the point a tad. No one really cares if your game is short if it actually has replayability. Sonic Generations aiming to be short isn't as big of an issue as it just not being all that interesting to revisit.

[light-gaia]

8 minutes ago, Wraith said:

My point was that coming at any of the Sonic games for length is missing the point a tad. No one really cares if your game is short if it actually has replayability. Sonic Generations aiming to be short isn't as big of an issue as it just not being all that interesting to revisit.

A lot of people care, and a lot of people in the fan base are complaining about that for a long time. You should say "I don't care", because when you say no one really cares, it's just a lie. Again, it's like when people say we should complain about Sonic Generations awful storytelling and characterization only because the game has a good gameplay. Acting like it's impossible to have both.

Yes, a game like Generations is better than a game with 10% of content that really matter and a bunch of annoying padding, but it doesn't mean the length isn't an issue, it's just better than the padding. Both are issues that need to be addressed.

[Wraith]

14 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

A lot of people care, and a lot of people in the fan base are complaining about that for a long time. You should say "I don't care", because when you say no one really cares, it's just a lie. Again, it's like when people say we should complain about Sonic Generations awful storytelling and characterization only because the game has a good gameplay. Acting like it's impossible to have both.

Yes, a game like Generations is better than a game with 10% of content that really matter and a bunch of annoying padding, but it doesn't mean the length isn't an issue, it's just better than the padding. Both are issues that need to be addressed.

Okay but both of those are problems that shrink in magnitude if you fix the core mechanics. Mario Odyssey is a game that gets a lot of accusations of padding but what no one talks about is how Mario's base moveset is so fun to use that even the bullshit chores in that game are more fun than the ones in most games.

There's no way around it. You guys always want to give Sonic Team's hairbrained schemes some validity when it makes a lot more sense to tackle the source of all these problems. Fix his movement, and hire real a level designer.

[azoo]

It's wild that for a company that made it's fame on short, highly replayable arcade experiences, Sega has been deathly afraid of letting Sonic be of the same philosophy.

In the past I used to deride Colors and Generations for being too short, but I realize nowadays that if you just took all the content I replayed extensively from each Sonic game I liked more and played it once, you'd also come up to about an hour and a half, or shorter.  The reason Colors/Gens don't satisfy me, in comparison, is because the other games were more fun and encouraged you (whether directly or indirectly) to replay them more, lol.

It's valid that Sega is searching for answers in this direction and if they feel they can pull it off (regardless of how much I or anyone else here believes it), then alright. But otherwise Wraith is on the money; they wouldn't be doing these kind of things if they had game designers and level designers that knew how to get a lot of value out of a little. But they don't, so this is their approach, just as it's always been.

[MH MD]

34 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

They can, but I don't think this was the case with Sonic Adventure. The hub worlds serve to make the game feel more like an RPG. But my point here is not defending the Adventure formula. I have said that both the boost formula, and the adventure formulas aren't perfect, and that Sonic Team needs to change some aspects in order to evolve the franchise going forward. One of these aspects is the bad combat mechanics, another is the length and the padding.

And why they felt the need to make the game feel like an RPG? cause those games are known for how grand and long they are on average 

 

36 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

If you exclude the padding, the length of Sonic Heroes is still comparable to other platformers of that time. Specially if you consider that the game isn't as easy as Generations or Forces and the stages are very long. The game would still be a decent length If you compare Sonic Heroes with games like Mario Sunshine, for example. Platformers don't have the same length as RPGs, or games like that, they are shorter games, but Sonic recent games are too short compared to the average, and the problem is getting worse because the standard of the industry now is more content. The boost formula only makes things more difficult in this regard.

But I think you are missing my point, I'm not defending any previous Sonic formula.

it's length is comparable to other platformers yes, and yet they felt the need to pad it for some reason, and i mean even outside the 4 campaigns of Heroes, the main campaign itself is padded with super long stages that didn't need to be that long in the first place, some stages feels they just copy pasted the same layout twice

so doing it basically 4 times were a chore

 

12 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

A lot of people care, and a lot of people in the fan base are complaining about that for a long time. You should say "I don't care", because when you say no one really cares, it's just a lie. Again, it's like when people say we should complain about Sonic Generations awful storytelling and characterization only because the game has a good gameplay. Acting like it's impossible to have both.

in the context of sonic games, the most well-received games in the series are the shortest, no one really lamenting the loss of long sonic games like Shadow the Hedgehog , people just want good games

 

In the context of full priced AAA games in general, you get full franchises like Resident Evil that sell for $60 , sells so well, and yet they are "short", yet people play them and still buy them ,cause they are good, and have high replay value, this series didn't feel the need to go open world or something, in fact, it's longest game "RE6" is the worst received one

 

[Dr. Detective]

I would say, to be completely fair, people care about different aspects of games for various reasons. 

I recall being told all the time back in the day that my caring the most about the narrative and characters in the Sonic series was the wrong thing to do and that I needed to re-evaluate what it meant to be a true Sonic fan or whatever. Except, the investment I had in the story and characters was literally what made me a fan so I wasn't sure what people were expecting from me.

At the end of the day, it didn't mean I'd accept the gameplay being shit either. It also didn't necessarily mean I wouldn't still like a game that had no story. I like Generations a lot and Mania (despite still not having beaten it) has been a lot of fun for the amount I managed to get through before Persona 5 took over my life.

When it comes to this, I think I'd prefer a moderately sized Sonic game actually. I don't believe they should resort to padding to achieve it and I have no suggestions on how to avoid it. It's mostly just a pleasant thought.

I like the idea of enjoying everything about the next Sonic game. I don't want to forsake something for the sake of something else. Other people have different ideas of what that would even entail though so all I can do is hope it's something I enjoy.

[light-gaia]

2 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Okay but both of those are problems that shrink in magnitude if you fix the core mechanics. Mario Odyssey is a game that gets a lot of accusations of padding but what no one talks about is how Mario's base moveset is so fun to use that even the bullshit chores in that game are more fun than the ones in most games.

There's no way around it. You guys always want to give Sonic Team's hairbrained schemes some validity when it makes a lot more sense to tackle the source of all these problems. Fix his movement, and hire real a level designer.

In my opinion, they need to:

• Fix Sonic's movement;
• Use the 3D environment more wisely
• Improve the combat system
• Improve the storytelling and characterization
• Stop reusing old environments like Green Hill and Chemical Plant

I'm a little more optimistic about Frontiers than most of you are because I enjoy most of Sonic's 3D games (even with their flaws), but I don't fully trust Sonic Team either. I'm waiting to see, but Iizuka is saying they are working on these specific aspects of Sonic's 3D gameplay. If they are going to succeed or not, only time will tell, but this is better than not trying at all.
 

1 minute ago, MH MD said:

And why they felt the need to make the game feel like an RPG? cause those games are known for how grand and long they are on average

Because they wanted the game to have a more compelling storytelling compared to the classic games, because they wanted to deliver a next gen experience for the Sega Dreamcast, and because at that time it was super impressive to have open 3D areas like that.

4 minutes ago, MH MD said:

in the context of sonic games, the most well-received games in the series are the shortest, no one really lamenting the loss of long sonic games like Shadow the Hedgehog , people just want good games

 

In the context of full priced AAA games in general, you get full franchises like Resident Evil that sell for $60 , sells so well, and yet they are "short", yet people play them and still buy them ,cause they are good, and have high replay value, this series didn't feel the need to go open world or something, in fact, it's longest game "RE6" is the worst received one

 

As I said before, a short game with good gameplay without too much padding is better than a longer game that most of the play time is padding. But that doesn't mean the length is not a problem. And Sonic Generations isn't so critically acclaimed. It has a metascore of 77/100. It's better than most 3D Sonic games, but it's not comparable to other franchises with more fulfiling experiences.

 

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I would say, to be completely fair, people care about different aspects of games for various reasons. 

I recall being told all the time back in the day that my caring the most about the narrative and characters in the Sonic series was the wrong thing to do and that I needed to re-evaluate what it meant to be a true Sonic fan or whatever. Except, the investment I had in the story and characters was literally what made me a fan so I wasn't sure what people were expecting from me.

At the end of the day, it didn't mean I'd accept the gameplay being shit either. It also didn't necessarily mean I wouldn't still like a game that had no story. I like Generations a lot and Mania (despite still not having beaten it) has been a lot of fun for the amount I managed to get through before Persona 5 took over my life.

When it comes to this, I think I'd prefer a moderately sized Sonic game actually. I don't believe they should resort to padding to achieve it and I have no suggestions on how to avoid it. It's mostly just a pleasant thought.

I like the idea of enjoying everything about the next Sonic game. I don't want to forsake something for the sake of something else. Other people have different ideas of what that would even entail though so all I can do is hope it's something I enjoy.

I agree about the story, I'm just....not really worried about the story this time. If they let Flynn do his thing it should be fine at worst.

 

People were definitely being shitty about it back in the day though, speaking as someone who used to be a lukewarm defender of pontaff stories but wrapped around into hating them after revisiting the classics of all things. Sonic characters are fun. It's fun to watch them interact and do cool shit. There's space for plenty of that inbetween top notch levels and movement mechanics.

[Kazhnuz]

I'm not that sure how much either length or having padding or not are a major issue (by that I mean that both are issues, and sometimes big in some games, but that there is some issues elsewhere) of the IP tbh, and honestly I'm not sure how much either are really correlated to the success or not of individual games. ( There is also an issue of what should be defined as padding or not, and what would be a good definition of padding. Which would be an interesting question honestly. )

Now, I'm personally all for a longer Sonic game, even with some padding, if it's used in a good way. I honestly feel that a loss with alternate character is also that it was an interesting way to make a game longer (which lacked good execution in the 3D games often), either by making you connect with a different character or (like in the classics, where it's really nice) be able to rediscover in another way the levels. In a way, I feel that the Sonic Team lacked some cleverness in making their game longer, and I wouldn't be unhappy with a somewhat longer game, given that the padding isn't Unleashed medals-level or animal-farming levels (just my opinion bla bla bla I know I'm boring with that XD).

Especially as personally (and I won't try to represent anybody other than me) : yup, I've been kinda disappointed with how some of the recent games felt short… so yeah I really see an incentive in using a genre that tend to be longer (I honestly don't have compared how long the games actually are, it might also be than kid Kazhnuz finished his game slower than old Kazhnuz), even if I'm a bit afraid of HOW it'll be padded out tho (but as I said, I love BotW-like games, so I'm certainly part of the targeted public of this game XD).

[Kuzu]

I understand Sonic fans are all over the place when it comes to what they value in a Sonic game, and Sega are basically scrambling trying to accommodate for everyone's tastes. But that's literally impossible, and the more they attempt to do so, the more problems these games are going to face regardless of what they do. 

Like at this point, I've long accepted that my tastes aren't going to be completely catered to when it comes to this series. It's expanded far beyond what I knew it as when I first got into it, and I'm not selfish enough to pretend like my tastes are inherently better than everyone else's. Some people play Sonic for the gameplay while others play it for the story and characters. Ideally, we should get both, but that's not realistic and even in the games the fandom adores, these problems have been persisting. 

 

I'm at a point where I honestly just want a Sonic game with fresh mechanics over a compelling story, narrative or an abundance of characters. The latter I can get in formats like the IDW comics, but the former I'm only going to get in the games. Sonic needs to start taking advantage of the different mediums it has to start satisfying it's 30 year fanbase. 

[VO.SUPER]

6 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

I agree that not everything needs to be hundreds of hours long or a live service game, but Sonic is mostly made up of short games, I'd like to have a big game that can keep my attention as long as many of Sonic's competitors can. I can replay Generations and SA2 any day, but Sonic's gameplay and narrative has the potential to thrive in a AAA-esque game, and I think that we should give it a chance at least once.

The problem is that whenever Sonic tries to go for "longer" we've gotten Sonic Heroes and Sonic Unleashed, where there is just as much bloat as there is meaningful content. 

I feel SEGA just haven't found a style that ever really fit Sonic gameplay ballooning 20+ hours. At least not without serious reusing of assets. I believe SA2 was the closest to hit that mark with the mission variety, but even then SA2 has a lot of slipping with its "variety".

[BubbleButt TV]

well according to HowLongToBeat.com; Sonic '06 has the longest main campaign of any sonic game at 16 hours, but Adventure 2 Battle has the longest completionist time at 72+ hours

I don't think Frontiers will reach that tbh, it's hard to imagine, considering that you'll only play as Sonic in this

[azoo]

Get ready for a slew of things you see in other open world games (or MMOs like PSO2 / FF14) that'll likely pad out the experience. Whether you like that or not, I dunno, but that's likely what they're filling in the blanks with. And yes, that even means microtransactions are likely.

[light-gaia]

2 minutes ago, azoo said:

Get ready for a slew of things you see in other open world games (or MMOs like PSO2 / FF14) that'll likely pad out the experience. Whether you like that or not, I dunno, but that's likely what they're filling in the blanks with. And yes, that even means microtransactions are likely.

PSO2 and FFXIV are MMOs, they need to be grindy. Sonic Frontiers is a single player game.

[Kazhnuz]

Mmh, I'm not sure that Frontiers will be protected from being grindy just because it's single player. SP games have nothing that inherently protect them from grind. Grind will really depends of how the game designer things... Sonic games had a tad of grind with stuff like Lost World, so I think it's a big possibility that we have some grinding to pad out the game, especially if there is a skill tree. It might not be too bad tho, if we gain level fast enough. A lot of that will depends more of their game design vision.

What I hope is that they won't make the game design mistake of locking in the skill tree some capacities that are needed to travel. There not that much chances I think (I feel more they'll do something like "one power from each saved character"), but in every game it's the thing I dread to see XD

 

Microtransaction, i'm crossing my finger we won't have that and that they have learned from the Super Sonic fiasco from Forces. That's not my main concern tho, for the moment.

[CertifiedNobody]

3 hours ago, azoo said:

Get ready for a slew of things you see in other open world games (or MMOs like PSO2 / FF14) that'll likely pad out the experience. Whether you like that or not, I dunno, but that's likely what they're filling in the blanks with. And yes, that even means microtransactions are likely.

Single-player games don't typically have microtransactions. There are more common for free to play and multiplayer games that have to deal with server costs

[azoo]

Who's to say you won't play with other Sonics, via the cyberspace excuse? Or get special skins/supports/buffs like in Dash, Runners etc that try to bleed you dry? A hologram of Silver + a hero Chao to follow you around for combat support, while wearing your SOAP shoes cosmetics and donning an offense buff that gives you double EXP?

Be prepared for anything.