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

[Nuggets]

58 minutes ago, DaBigJ said:

Alright, let me clarify 

When I say "getting away", it was a bad choice of wording. What I really mean is "they don't get enough pushback unlike other brands". 

Yes, we as a community push back on it all, but I don't think it's enough. I think more people outside of the community need to put their foot down somewhat. I don't know if it'll help, but maybe it'll at least send the message farther

this has been a growing complaint for years, from both the community and game reviewers. as others in this thread have mentioned, the pushback is both real and loud. This is probably the most pushback it’s ever gotten. Sonic Team/Sega is definitely aware. I believe part of it continuing to happen is creative laziness (reuse some other assets for the love of christ) but mostly has just stemmed from crunch/lack of money and a cost-cutting way to reuse assets/brand recognition. they aren’t getting away with anything - they just aren’t listening lol 

[DaBigJ]

That's extremely depressing. I wish they would listen 

[LegoFedora]

I don't have a source on hand, but I recall hearing Sonic Team say the cyberspace stages were an idea added relatively late into development. So even though seeing reused forces/gens assets is still annoying, I think it's relatively justified here if they really were late additions like ST claims they are. Most of their effort/budget probably went into the open zone aspect, so I can believe that they didn't have much left to cook up entirely new cyberspace assets (outside of the new highway zone we got, which was probably them throwing us a bone more than anything.)

Now if Frontiers 2 brings back cyberspace and still reuses GHZ/CHZ/SSZ, then yeah it's absolutely a problem and inexcusable 

[Shiny Gems]

Well, I finished Sonic Frontiers just now, and I must say...

 

I loved it! I thought it was a great game! Even though some things held it back like the Cyberspace levels, it was a blast! I loved the story! It was great! (Or maybe great for a Sonic game, since I remember seeing some people not like the story, or at least thought it was boring) The ending could have been better though, as there was not too much meat into it. I loved the song called "Dear Father" at the end, it made me cry a little. Anyway, great game! I am looking forward to the next Sonic game, or at least the third update for this game with the new story mode, not to mention three additional playable characters.

[ZinogreVolt]

 

There was apparently a point in development where both Boost and Spindash coexisting was on the table, but it was scrapped for one reason or another. I hope they take a crack at this next game, because I'd like to see what they could do with both at once.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

6 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

There was apparently a point in development where both Boost and Spindash coexisting was on the table, but it was scrapped for one reason or another. I hope they take a crack at this next game, because I'd like to see what they could do with both at once.

These talks with Kishimoto have definitely been insightful. All in all, it appears that Frontiers was held back from being the best game that it could be, by factors that probably shouldn't be as much an issue with the next run. Between them hiring new staff and dev personnel.

There's also the possibility that they could use the later updates that Frontiers is getting as something of a grounds for implementing some of these gameplay improvements as well.

[Shiny Gems]

40 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

There was apparently a point in development where both Boost and Spindash coexisting was on the table, but it was scrapped for one reason or another. I hope they take a crack at this next game, because I'd like to see what they could do with both at once.

You know, Morio also said he tried to add the Drift, too. I can think of a way to add both the Drift and Spin Dash: just have the Spin Dash button be the second left trigger of the controller, and for the Drift, hold the Spin Dash button, or L2, and the boost button, or R2, and just use the control stick to drift from there, much like holding both R1 and L1 to parry. Unless I am missing something, I think this could have worked.

[Wraith]

The problem that he ran into was probably the fact that there isn't a reason to have both a boost and a spindash, since the former invalidates the latter. On top of that the controls are already juggling too many actions as is.

The fact that they weren't clever enough to sort it out doesn't bode well for next time.

[ZinogreVolt]

For an open ended game that is designed around experimental play and intrinsic motivation, I think it would be better to pursue a small number of actions/commands that have a wide range of potential and practical interactions. Cyloop is a good example of this: you can interact with the environment/enemies/puzzles with it, but there are also plenty of scenarios where it's not the best course of action. It's a strong fit for Frontiers because it helps to reinforce the feeling of choice and interactivity that sandboxes excel at. It's let down somewhat by the fact that things like puzzles are dead simple, but in concept and execution I still feel it's the sort of steps and open ended Sonic should be taking.

Binary actions like the Slide/Quickstep ought to be cut because they add nothing to the sandbox design by being there, and if you look at Frontiers itself I'm pretty sure the devs knew that. Short of a couple boss battles, there's basically no point in the game where using either of those things feels necessary or needed to progress. They clog up the control scheme and can safely be removed. Weirdly they seemed to have gotten the memo on that for the drift, since it's the only one that got turned into a purely context sensitive maneuver. 

 

[Wraith]

2 hours ago, ZinogreVolt said:

 

Binary actions like the Slide/Quickstep ought to be cut because they add nothing to the sandbox design by being there, and if you look at Frontiers itself I'm pretty sure the devs knew that. Short of a couple boss battles, there's basically no point in the game where using either of those things feels necessary or needed to progress. They clog up the control scheme and can safely be removed. Weirdly they seemed to have gotten the memo on that for the drift, since it's the only one that got turned into a purely context sensitive maneuver. 

Which makes no sense, because the drift has a lot of uses in an open map where you might just want to change direction on a whim while the slide and quickstep have none. 

A lot of people think these things take trial and error to figure out when they could be reasoned in the planning stages. 

[Bobnik]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

Which makes no sense, because the drift has a lot of uses in an open map where you might just want to change direction on a whim while the slide and quickstep have none. 

 ...but you can already turn on a whim without the drift due to how Sonic controls in open-zone and I'd argue it's more instant than drifting would ever be. Unless you play at 0 or very low turning sensitivity, which, frankly, is just blowing your kneecaps off with a shotgun. It made sense to have in previous boost games, where the turning was really heavy and you mainly "guided" Sonic. It makes no sense to have it here when the turning is the way it is and you actually have proper ground control over the character.

Slide and quickstep should've been either removed or reworked tho, yeah. Like, rolling is right there and quickstep can just stay as a dodge during combat (though I guess quickstep is kinda useful in an unintentional way of maintaining max speed without boosting, but that's more of an exploit lmao)

[Shiny Gems]

A question: Considering how advanced Sage is, I thought she was something Eggman would have a hard time making. I could be wrong, but out of curiosity, did Eggman use some of the Ancients' technology to make her?

[Razule]

1 hour ago, ShinyGems said:

A question: Considering how advanced Sage is, I thought she was something Eggman would have a hard time making. I could be wrong, but out of curiosity, did Eggman use some of the Ancients' technology to make her?

He made her code, and plugging her into the Ancients' technology made her into what she is. That's what he was doing in the beginning of the game before he's sucked into Cyber Space.

[Shiny Gems]

1 hour ago, Razule said:

He made her code, and plugging her into the Ancients' technology made her into what she is. That's what he was doing in the beginning of the game before he's sucked into Cyber Space.

Ah, I thought so. No surprise there. I did have my doubts that Eggman could make her in the way she turned out without the Ancients’ technology.

[Cooldude]

On 1/14/2023 at 4:20 AM, ShinyGems said:

A question: Considering how advanced Sage is, I thought she was something Eggman would have a hard time making. I could be wrong, but out of curiosity, did Eggman use some of the Ancients' technology to make her?

I remember at one point in the game Sage said her "base code is compiled by Eggman", and then...I don't remember the exact phrase, but also something about how the Ancients augmented and enhanced her ability.

[Shiny Gems]

By the way, if Tails, Amy and Knuckles say they were going to see the world, does this mean they will see the likes of Adabat and Spagonia?

Seriously though, after playing the game, I am thinking...

Spoiler

If I have this down right, the Chaos Emeralds are actually from another planet that has since been destroyed?

Also, is there a reason that the Ancients in the flashbacks look like  cousins of Chaos 0?

I hope you all don't mind me asking all this.

[LegoFedora]

1 hour ago, ShinyGems said:

By the way, if Tails, Amy and Knuckles say they were going to see the world, does this mean they will see the likes of Adabat and Spagonia?

Amy may already know of those places, she was in Unleashed after all (even if she didn't have much of an important role). Same for tails.

Knuckles though, he'd probably get a kick out of exploring the rest of the world which would probably be new for him.

1 hour ago, ShinyGems said:

If I have this down right, the Chaos Emeralds are actually from another planet that has since been destroyed?

It's implied so, yeah. Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald are connected, but the chaos emeralds aren't native to Earth/Mobius really.

1 hour ago, ShinyGems said:

Also, is there a reason that the Ancients in the flashbacks look like  cousins of Chaos 0?

Let me try to put this as easy as I can, as this connection is kind of a mess to explain.

Basically, Chaos (the cute things) are evolved descendants of Ancients. The ancients and chaos emeralds (and by extension, master emerald) are very much tied together, so when a Chao got mutated by the emerald (Chaos 0), it took on traits of it's past evolution line. Think of it like how Pokemon works; Charizard is a different beast than your Charmander is, but it still carries traits of a Charmander. Chaos 0 is still a Chao, but it carries traits from even earlier on in its evolution line (Ancients).

The master emerald "re-activated" some of the Ancients' traits that Chaos 0 held when it was a chao. That's why Chaos 0 and Ancients are so similar, because Chaos 0 is almost literally devolving back to being an Ancient.

I'm not 100% sure if this is how it works, but this is how I managed to make sense of the weird (albeit kind of really cool) way of the similarities.

[Shiny Gems]

1 minute ago, LegoFedora said:

Let me try to put this as easy as I can, as this connection is kind of a mess to explain.

Basically, Chaos (the cute things) are evolved descendants of Ancients. The ancients and chaos emeralds (and by extension, master emerald) are very much tied together, so when a Chao got mutated by the emerald (Chaos 0), it took on traits of it's past evolution line. Think of it like how Pokemon works; Charizard is a different beast than your Charmander is, but it still carries traits of a Charmander. Chaos 0 is still a Chao, but it carries traits from even earlier on in its evolution line (Ancients).

The master emerald "re-activated" some of the Ancients' traits that Chaos 0 held when it was a chao. That's why Chaos 0 and Ancients are so similar, because Chaos 0 is almost literally devolving back to being an Ancient.

I'm not 100% sure if this is how it works, but this is how I managed to make sense of the weird (albeit kind of really cool) way of the similarities.

That makes sense, actually. Too much sense to deny, in fact. I wanted to ask that question I asked about Chaos 0 to be sure, even if your explanation is not of 100 percent certainty, but honestly, yeah, I should have thought of that before I asked. Your explanation is a good one, unless someone has a better explanation, but still, I like yours quite a bit.

[ZinogreVolt]

Sonic Frontiers has made #6 overall in the US NPD sales data for December 2022, dropping only two places from its November launch month. No doubt the holiday sales were big. This is notably the first time any one game in the series has charted for two consecutive months (with data that we have), much less twice in the Top 10. 

EDIT:
NPD's full report has come out, with some new information on Frontiers' performance: 

- Ranked 5th on Nintendo Switch, down from 2nd last month
- Ranked 9th on PlayStation 4/5, down from 5th last month
- Ranked 7th on Xbox One/Series, down from 4th last month
- Overall the 16th Best Selling game of 2022 in the United States

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

9 hours ago, ZinogreVolt said:

Sonic Frontiers has made #6 overall in the US NPD sales data for December 2022, dropping only two places from its November launch month. No doubt the holiday sales were big. This is notably the first time any one game in the series has charted for two consecutive months (with data that we have), much less twice in the Top 10. 

EDIT:
NPD's full report has come out, with some new information on Frontiers' performance: 

- Ranked 5th on Nintendo Switch, down from 2nd last month
- Ranked 9th on PlayStation 4/5, down from 5th last month
- Ranked 7th on Xbox One/Series, down from 4th last month
- Overall the 16th Best Selling game of 2022 in the United States

Pretty good. Frontiers has shown off some nice legs do far.

If they can maintain it well enough, then the DLC boosts should do their job quite well.

[Shiny Gems]

Nice to see Sonic Frontiers doing so well. Hopefully, it can keep this up.

Anyway, there is something I wish to say about the final boss of Sonic Frontiers, which is The End. I already talked to two others about this through messaging, and now I wish to say this here. Anyway, here we go.

 

You see, I was viewing a Sonic Frontiers video on Youtube with the boss music for The End, and people were saying things along the lines of Sonic being a beacon of hope as well as him and Sage doing the impossible and fighting an entity that people would otherwise or are supposed to have no hope to defeat for good. They also described The End as something that cannot be destroyed easily, if it can be destroyed for good at all.

Say what you will about the final boss that is The End, but I think there was more to this fight than what people may think...in the sense that people are saying that this was about using willpower to fight...The End. While this may have been touched on indirectly, Super Sonic and Sage are not just fighting something they should never hope to defeat, but they are fighting something and trying to defeat it despite the laws of logic saying they can't. Freaking logic! Though The End has a chance of coming back, Sonic and the others can still find a way to put it down for good, even if they are not supposed to by the laws of logic. That is basically the power of the will for ya! The laws of logic should dictate you cannot do something, but you can still try to do it and actually win in the end, for when there's a will, there's a way, and you should never say never, you know what I mean?

 

[ZinogreVolt]

1 hour ago, ShinyGems said:

Say what you will about the final boss that is The End, but I think there was more to this fight than what people may think...in the sense that people are saying that this was about using willpower to fight...The End. While this may have been touched on indirectly, Super Sonic and Sage are not just fighting something they should never hope to defeat, but they are fighting something and trying to defeat it despite the laws of logic saying they can't. Freaking logic! Though The End has a chance of coming back, Sonic and the others can still find a way to put it down for good, even if they are not supposed to by the laws of logic. That is basically the power of the will for ya! The laws of logic should dictate you cannot do something, but you can still try to do it and actually win in the end, for when there's a will, there's a way, and you should never say never, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I think the game set up The End better than people give it credit for. I wish their onscreen time wasn't so brief and I wish they had a chance to really just tear ass on the planet (or at least Starfall) or something so that its presence and the consequences of Sonic releasing it was more felt. But I otherwise really like it, logic and calculations would dictate that you can't kill Death, but a good amount of the game talks about how logic isn't everything and that maybe betting on the power of love and friendship will make things work out. So The End's ultimate destruction being at the hands of something Sage hadn't seen coming (e.g, Sonic still being alive to try and stop it) gives the climax a nice sense of rhythm, even if there were things I wish they'd done better.

[Shiny Gems]

11 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

Yeah, I think the game set up The End better than people give it credit for. I wish their onscreen time wasn't so brief and I wish they had a chance to really just tear ass on the planet (or at least Starfall) or something so that its presence and the consequences of Sonic releasing it was more felt. But I otherwise really like it, logic and calculations would dictate that you can't kill Death, but a good amount of the game talks about how logic isn't everything and that maybe betting on the power of love and friendship will make things work out. So The End's ultimate destruction being at the hands of something Sage hadn't seen coming (e.g, Sonic still being alive to try and stop it) gives the climax a nice sense of rhythm, even if there were things I wish they'd done better.

I do agree that some things could have been done better, and that The End could have had more screen time and done more than it did. Still, it is nice to see that you agree with what I noticed. Even Sage did simulations and thought Sonic and co. were doomed, but those expectations were proven wrong in the end. There may not have been much meat otherwise to The End since it was there for a short time as you said, but I do agree, there is a lot more to the end than what people gave it credit for.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

42 minutes ago, ShinyGems said:

57 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

Yeah, I think the game set up The End better than people give it credit for. I wish their onscreen time wasn't so brief and I wish they had a chance to really just tear ass on the planet (or at least Starfall) or something so that its presence and the consequences of Sonic releasing it was more felt. But I otherwise really like it, logic and calculations would dictate that you can't kill Death, but a good amount of the game talks about how logic isn't everything and that maybe betting on the power of love and friendship will make things work out. So The End's ultimate destruction being at the hands of something Sage hadn't seen coming (e.g, Sonic still being alive to try and stop it) gives the climax a nice sense of rhythm, even if there were things I wish they'd done better.

I do agree that some things could have been done better, and that The End could have had more screen time and done more than it did. Still, it is nice to see that you agree with what I noticed. Even Sage did simulations and thought Sonic and co. were doomed, but those expectations were proven wrong in the end. There may not have been much meat otherwise to The End since it was there for a short time as you said, but I do agree, there is a lot more to the end than what people gave it credit for.

I actually really dig how The End works in the narrative as a thematic end point of sorts (no pun intended).

It's a good obstacle that ties into one of the long-running themes of the Sonic series; bold courage in the face of cold dead logic, proving it wrong and rising above it all. Not to say that logic is obsolete, but that sometimes one's logic can be quite limited to a sense where they need to spread their wings and think outside the proverbial box. And find the strength inside to succeed despite the odds.

[Shiny Gems]

@Jovahexeon Jax JoranvexeonYeah. I do agree.

Also, I wish to say; while The End could have used more screen time and have some more development; at least its situation, compared to past bosses like Solaris and most of the other ones, in relation to Sonic and Sage; its theme, that is; is more clearly explained by Sonic Team more this time around. I liked how they gave a bigger emphasis on its theme, even if it has been done before. So props to Sonic Team for making the theme of the main character (Sonic) and the final boss (The End) and perhaps a bit more all more clearly compared to most past final bosses, and doing a good job on doing the theme overall (If I am not mistaken on all counts).