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

[BubbleButt TV]

at this point I only have one burning question on my mind:

does Gaia Colossus technically count as a playable character?

[Indigo Rush]

18 minutes ago, BubbleButt TV said:

at this point I only have one burning question on my mind:

does Gaia Colossus technically count as a playable character?

It does and I can't wait to play it in Sonic Forces Speed Battle

[Iko]

Maybe it's unrelated and all, but I want to mention the Kirby series, which even when does not feature playable "characters", still has tons of abilities, each with their own moveset, which could easily be considered as "characters" from a gameplay point of view.

I know, that's the whole gimmick of the series, and probably an exception among other platformer franchises, but it's still proof that it's possible to include several playable characters in a game by sticking with the core gameplay and changing a few moves.

I just want to bring in the example of how many Kirby fans consider the Dream Friends DLCs (additional characters) the best part of Kirby Star Allies, and how a lot of people (including critics) complained about lack of a big variety of abilities in Forgotten Land, along with Player 2 being forced to play as Bandana Waddle Dee instead of having access to more characters or abilities like in the previous game.

[Kuzu]

Forgotten Land is still considered a good game at the end of the day tho, other playable characters or not. And given isn't the first time the series has ever went 3D, not trying to force in every other character was the right call.

Its funny cuz Star Allies is kind of like Sonic Heroes in that respect. The central gimmick of both games being controlling a large amount of characters. And like Heroes, Star Allies suffers from having so many characters that its core mechanics and level design kind of suffers for it.

 

And I feel the difference between Kirby (and I guess Mega Man fits here too) and Sonic is that the former's abilities don't fundamentally change how the game is played. The suck ability is just replaced by whatever you absorbed but Kirby retains his normal moveset otherwise.

Tails' and Knuckles' abilities allow them to cover ranges and spaces that Sonic cannot explore. Having the ability to fly and cover a large amount of horizontal space with gliding are game changing abilities.

So that idea is sound in theory, but you'd have to get rid of Flying and Gliding as Tails and Knuckles to make it work.

[Dr. Mechano]

You can nerf their powers in 3D without getting rid of them entirely. 

Let Tails hover for a few seconds before descending, like Peach from Super Mario 3D World. Knuckles' gliding could descend faster, but it doubles as an attack to give it an upside over Tails's hover.

There. They're not purely Sonic clones and they don't totally break the level design.

[Coz483]

I know everyone loves the super dark Sonic plots but I'd honestly like a story of Sonic and Tails just hanging out being bros. I don't want it to be written like the 2010s stuff I just want a game where Sonic and Tails, and maybe other characters just have cool character interactions while on their mission to fight the villain.

[Scritch the Cat]

3 hours ago, Indigo Rush said:

The fault lies with Sonic Team for setting a decades-and-a-half long precedent of introducing new, important characters with every major release (and spin-offs, to boot) before realizing that it was getting very out of hand. They were right to pump the brakes on adding more characters and focusing on a few at a time, but by only featuring Sonic as playable for so long they've overcorrected to the point that fans from the beginning towards 2006 have yet to cease begging to play as anything that isn't Sonic. It's a right mess and Sonic Team has no one to blame but themselves.

I think it should also be recognized that they gave themselves a bit of a burden by focusing so much on mobility as the key feature of gameplay, and here it is useful from a design perspective to remember that not all extra characters they’ve tried have the SAME problems.  
 

Big the Cat, at least as he plays in Adventure, remains the go-to reference for unwanted extra characters in Sonic games, because he is barely mobile and the random nature of fishing means his gameplay doesn’t fit the skill mastery ideal that characterizes all most every other Sonic gameplay style.  Gamers may differ on how tolerable that is, but almost nobody was sad to see it go.  

However, Tails and Knuckles have a different problem entirely: They’re TOO mobile, and if anything they fit the speedrunning ethos of the series TOO well.  You have to put in a lot of extra work to make stages they don’t outright break with their heightened vertical abilities, so it’s understandable why Sonic Team stopped trying, but it’s ALSO understandable why many people miss them, because many consider soaring through the sky at fairly high speeds to be fun in itself, and you can’t really fault them for trying to surpass a lot of terrain with their abilities since that’s what they do with Sonic’s abilities too.  And again, I feel this all goes back to the inherent problems of designing a series, especially a platformer series, around a highly mobile character.  It had never been done and so it’s often been a bit of a puzzle juggling the combined tasks of giving players both the satisfaction of mobility and matching it with satisfying levels.  Kuzu is entitled to his opinion that a shorter Sonic game is a lesser evil than a more bogged down Sonic game, but I doubt many people would approve of short Sonic LEVELS; let alone tediously easy ones.

So now it’s time to change dead horses and talk about the Boost again: On some level its implications are very similar to those of Tails and Knuckles, especially Tails and Knuckles in 3D.  Giving Sonic much, much more ability to go fast perfectly fits the series on a sensuous level; allowing players to actually be the speed demon Sonic has usually been marketed as even if he had buzz kill moments like Labyrinth Zone lurking beneath the surface, so it’s obvious that many fans love it and it’s obvious why...but it makes it more complicated to design levels.  How do you challenge a character who can move that fast, and now effortlessly to boot?  While it’s hard to say there’s ever an objective right way to do it, in this case it feels like there isn’t anything close to consensus among fans.

I think if I was to imagine the true “path of least resistance” for “fixing” this series after 06, they’d still have removed the other characters, but kept Sonic’s gameplay as it had been in the Adventure era.  Maybe add drift and quick-step, but no boost.  The truth is, the more mobile Sonic is, the more they  feel a need—unfortunately with some justifications—to restrict him arbitrarily with forced paths, forced shifts to 2D and forced tasks that drag on for what seems like minutes and keep repeating themselves, like those “strafe to avoid three lasers” segments.  I for one would far rather play as a Sonic who is less mobile but is always free to use what mobility he has to milk the terrain for all the thrills and perks he can.

But that’s me.  Again, just like other characters, there are people who find Boost fun and would vent if they removed it.  It’s the price developers pay for adding features that are fun in themselves but very hard to develop suitable levels for.

[StaticMania]

21 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

...there are people who find Boost fun and would vent if they removed it.

There are people who just want the same thing over and over as well and complain when even a single game is different...

It's not really worth caring about the idea of this when the Boost gameplay was in 4 of the last 5 games.

Playable characters are a different beast, playable characters can be in every game ever for the end of time easily...Sega just made all of them playable every time.

Which is just ridiculous for both gameplay refinement & story telling. Optional bonus characters don't need their own story campaign and there doesn't need to be more than 4...

[Scritch the Cat]

28 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

There are people who just want the same thing over and over as well and complain when even a single game is different...

It's not really worth caring about the idea of this when the Boost gameplay was in 4 of the last 5 games.

Playable characters are a different beast, playable characters can be in every game ever for the end of time easily...Sega just made all of them playable every time.

Which is just ridiculous for both gameplay refinement & story telling. Optional bonus characters don't need their own story campaign and there doesn't need to be more than 4...

That post has some weird grammar. It’s pretty obvious SEGA did NOT make every character playable every time.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Playable characters are a different beast, yes…but it’s far from impossible.

Since Sonic is following the path of Breath of the Wild, I’d argue it’s actually even more within his reach.

And this is an apt comparison I never thought I would have the chance to make until now: Genshin Impact, anyone? Basically does exactly what we’re wanting Sonic to do—multiple characters in an sprawling large hub world. It’s BOTW with multiple characters. Only problem I have with it is the Gacha system—mind you, I haven’t played the game for long either due to playing a slew of other games (League of Legends, Azure Striker Luminous Avenger iX)—but this game basically does what Sonic is about to do, and does it with multiple characters: multiple characters that have abilities with Fire (Blaze?), characters with bailies of Wind (Sonic?), characters that cause craters in Earth (Knuckles?), characters that can shoot Lightning (Shadow?), characters that can glide and climb (again, Knuckles? Hell, even Rouge and Espio too), the list can go on and you can even mix abilities in the environment (Water + Lightning = Supercharged or whatever they call it, Fire + Water = Steam, etc), characters with melee attacks (Knuckles, Rouge, Amy, heck maybe Shadow if they wanted to bring back his attack combo from 06), and characters that can attack at ranges (Cream, Shadow, Blaze, Silver, Metal Sonic).

…and you can play it on your cellphone.

Now I’m not naive to think this will be easy for Sonic, as he’s going to utilize (or rather should be utilizing) different mechanics. But the idea is there; the idea is possible; and if Frontiers manages to surprise us and succeed, what’s to stop them from finally giving the go ahead and having continuous DLC of adding multiple characters? 

Call me overly optimistic if you want (I’m anything but, but that’s a compliment these days given all the cynicism you folks have been displaying, so ), but the idea isn’t that far out there as it was once thought of in the past. Might take a lot of effort, but it’s not an impossibility or a problem as we used to make it out to be.

[Scritch the Cat]

8 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Playable characters are a different beast, yes…but it’s far from impossible.

Since Sonic is following the path of Breath of the Wild, I’d argue it’s actually even more within his reach.

And this is an apt comparison I never thought I would have the chance to make until now: Genshin Impact, anyone? Basically does exactly what we’re wanting Sonic to do—multiple characters in an sprawling large hub world. It’s BOTW with multiple characters. Only problem I have with it is the Gacha system—mind you, I haven’t played the game for long either due to playing a slew of other games (League of Legends, Azure Striker Luminous Avenger iX)—but this game basically does what Sonic is about to do…

…and you can play it on your cellphone.

Now I’m not naive to think this will be easy for Sonic, as he’s going to utilize (or rather should be utilizing) different mechanics. But the idea is there; the idea is possible; and if Frontiers manages to surprise us and succeed, what’s to stop them from finally giving the go ahead and having continuous DLC of adding multiple characters?

Call me overly optimistic if you want (I’m anything but, but that’s a compliment these days given all the cynicism you folks have been displaying, so ), but the idea isn’t that far out there as it was once thought of in the past. Might take a lot of effort, but it’s not an impossibility or a problem as we used to make it out to be.

Depending on how they design the world of Sonic Frontiers, other characters would be more or less practical.  Not necessarily any more or less likely , but more or less practical; unfortunately it's not very clear what will sort of terrain will be in this game.  We've seen one tower that looks like Tails and Knuckles might be able to cheese it, but with no real idea of how common such things are, it's an open question whether Tails and Knuckles would be game-breaking, pointless most of the time, or that happy medium between the two. 

Of course, there are other aspects of the game, like the aforementioned combat.  This is a place where I maintain multiple characters could thrive as they could have different movesets to increase variety; also characters who would be pointless in normal Sonic level design because they're too slow, could be useful there because they're stronger.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

You could solve the problem with Knuckles and Tails flying over everything by simply making aerial enemies that can nail you out of the sky if they target you like the Guardian Skywatchers in BotW.

Combat should be limited to as few hits as possible on enemies as opposed to the basic mooks in Heroes taking several hits at minimum at your weakest, all while blending it with speed. There’s a solution to these things that require ingenuity rather than an adherence tradition.

[ComeAsYouAre]

9 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Yet Crash and Spyro were able to do just that turned out just fine. Funny how that works.

Crash Benefited from being released in 1996, not in 1998 

[Dr. Detective]

Going back to their old stuff and trying to help the stigma of the past with a few remakes and remasters sounds like it might be a nice thing to do...

I say literally before reading the latest news article that was just posted.

Edit: Oh God. I just remembered Colors Ultimate. Will it be more of that or something like what Origins seems to be? Goddamit.

[Scritch the Cat]

1 minute ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

There’s a solution to these things that require ingenuity rather than an adherence to tradition.

Part of me agrees with that, but another very big part sees past attempts at reinventing this series' gameplay as the reason its fanbase is so irreparably broken, and does not want more for that very reason.

That damage having already been done, though, I'm not the first person who said this, but I think they should give up on trying to find the magical solution that somehow pleases everyone at this point; rather, do what Mario did and establish multiple different Sonic subseries that each carry on things that have sizable fanbases, but don't go well together.

There are likely people who disagree with me, but I think it is entirely possible for SEGA to reach out to fangame developers who have made Adventure-like fangames, and commission them to do an officially licensed, for-profit throwback to that era; the same as they did for Classic Sonic in Sonic Mania.  While fangames haven't yet cracked the code of how to design games for Classic Sonic physics but in 3D (though I'd argue they've come closer than Sonic Team simply because they're actually trying), it isn't any major trick to make something that works with Adventure's more arbitrary, predictable physics; not to mention that this game's intended fanbase will be more tolerant of alternate playstyles that don't have to negotiate with high-speed physics.  Even if it turns out this only appeals to a niche of the Sonic fandom, that won't be a problem if almost no resources are diverted to the game's development and it doesn't delay the development of anything else.  Outsource to an indie studio formed to develop a Sonic Adventure follow-up, preferably one willing to do it for low pay upfront so long as they get royalties afterward, and you have a chance to satisfy people who aren't happy without annoying anyone else in the process.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

27 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Part of me agrees with that, but another very big part sees past attempts at reinventing this series' gameplay as the reason its fanbase is so irreparably broken, and does not want more for that very reason.

Yeah, and little wonder why not a lot gets fixed in this franchise either, isn’t it?

I’m not saying things should drastically change, but that an idea can be modified to work better than originally intended.

[ComeAsYouAre]

If there's one thing Frontier can do is that it could make environmental Bosses/puzzles 

[Scritch the Cat]

26 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Yeah, and little wonder why not a lot gets fixed in this franchise either, isn’t it?

I’m not saying things should drastically change, but that an idea can be modified to work better than originally intended.

That is accurate.  A lot of ideas that could be really cool for this series, like branching level structures, got dropped just because they were badly done in infamous games like Shadow the Hedgehog.  More recently, Parkour is an example of a mechanic that, on paper, fits Sonic's personality and abilities perfectly, but was scrapped due to being in a movement engine that had more flaws than perks.  Finally, as easy as they were to mock and as underwhelming a game as they debuted in, custom characters aren't an innately bad idea either.

[Zoomzeta]

On 5/12/2022 at 3:51 PM, Scritch the Cat said:

Is it, though?  I understand why people would conclude that, but if Iizuka or anyone else ever said that, I don't recall ever hearing or reading it. 

The closest I recall Iizuka saying is that this would begin a new era of Sonic, and I recall him saying in the same document that contrary to what was implied in Sonic Generations, he considers Adventure and Boost to be part of the same era. 

Maybe he is doing this because he feels Boost has run its course, and maybe that writing was on the wall even before Sonic Forces, though arguably the reason Boost was so much worse in Sonic Forces is because Iizuka decided to dumb it down for n00bs.  However, it's just as easy to read this as another attempt to recapture Sonic's 1990s glory as a "cool" series by jumping on bandwagons.  Zelda did it and people loved it, Pokemon did and people loved it, Sonic's doing it and they hope people will love it.  For all we know, there will still be a boost in this game, although based on information released it will discontinue other features of the boost gameplay, such as semi-railed stages and utterly weak enemies.

As to adding other characters in, the thing is that even if they do consider this a course correction, it's safe to say that what Sonic Team considers incorrect about this series is not what most of the fandom sees as incorrect about it.  I like to think of the good Sonic fans as The Silent Majority, and it feels like most post-06 direction of this series is influenced more by its loud detractors.  Whether they're loud because they're employed by gaming publications, loud because they have a lot of followers, loud because they're good at being provocative, or sometimes a combination of the above, Sonic Team has likely heard a lot more negative opinions of other characters than positive opinions.  I stopped reading most gaming publications over a decade ago; partially because I disagreed with many of their opinions of Sonic but mostly because they're essentially obsolete in the era of Internet forums, so for all I know since SEGA axed other playable characters there have been many angry articles about how much better Sonic was when he brought some friends along, but even if they exist, SEGA hasn't seemed to have noticed.  Yes, Sonic Mania was a hit but unless a whole bunch of reviewers specifically named the other characters as a big reason they loved the game, I'm not sure Sonic Team reads that hit as anything besides "keep shoving Classic Sonic, Green Hill Zone and forced 2D sections into every new game".

PS: Anyone else think it's a bit of a bad idea to make a new mainline game with the same acronym as last mainline game?

Whether the game is a course correct or not likely depends on how far they are reinventing the wheel. 

Making an open world Sonic game, to me at least, is a course correction as far level design and possibly game mechanics are concerned. 

[Scritch the Cat]

47 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

Whether the game is a course correct or not likely depends on how far they are reinventing the wheel. 

Making an open world Sonic game, to me at least, is a course correction as far level design and possibly game mechanics are concerned. 

In theory, I agree.  In practice, the last time they attempted environments that were both wide-open and utilized Sonic’s speed was Sonic 06, and after that wipeout they “solved” the problem by making speed levels more railed from then on, sometimes figuratively but sometimes literally.  Without any return to more Adventure 1/06-like level design between last Boost game and now, I at the very least would like open demos before I’m willing to believe they have the time, talent, and ethics to do this correctly.

[ComeAsYouAre]

Making an Open World Sonic Game will open up comparisons to other Open World games, especially now that the standards for Open World games are becoming higher than ever compared to even 5 years ago. Games that would get awards years ago would get panned nowadays due to being "barren"

[Scritch the Cat]

3 hours ago, ComeAsYouAre said:

Making an Open World Sonic Game will open up comparisons to other Open World games, especially now that the standards for Open World games are becoming higher than ever compared to even 5 years ago. Games that would get awards years ago would get panned nowadays due to being "barren"

That’s debatable.  It feels like thanks to Fallout, “barren” has become the standard for open-world games the way that “vulgarity” was the standard when GTA was the most famous open-world series.  Since then, many games have shot for that forlorn vibe, either by repeating the post-apocalypse theme (BOTW, likely this game) or by going for a pre-settlement theme (Red Dead Redemption, Pokemon Legends: Arceus).  HOW barren games can get before people call bull on them using the trend and plot just to skimp on content, remains to be seen.

[ComeAsYouAre]

By Barren I mean lack of Game Content rather than NPC and Settlements.  I would have never finished BOTW if I didn't enjoy the shrines or the side characters

Team Sonic is gonna need to add in a lot of things to avoid the game being a Running simulator, Environmental Puzzles are one example.  

 

And I don't think bringing up Fallout or Red Dead is a good example because the emptiness in those games is intentional due to the overall aesthetics and story they have. Sonic's World is supposed to be more lively and Flamboyant

[expansivelovestories]

5 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

You could solve the problem with Knuckles and Tails flying over everything by simply making aerial enemies that can nail you out of the sky if they target you like the Guardian Skywatchers in BotW.

Combat should be limited to as few hits as possible on enemies as opposed to the basic mooks in Heroes taking several hits at minimum at your weakest, all while blending it with speed. There’s a solution to these things that require ingenuity rather than an adherence tradition.

Yes, I had forgotten about the flying machines shown in the trailer!  

 

 

 

[Scritch the Cat]

1 hour ago, ComeAsYouAre said:

By Barren I mean lack of Game Content rather than NPC and Settlements.  I would have never finished BOTW if I didn't enjoy the shrines or the side characters 

Team Sonic is gonna need to add in a lot of things to avoid the game being a Running simulator, Environmental Puzzles are one example.  

 

And I don't think bringing up Fallout or Red Dead is a good example because the emptiness in those games is intentional due to the overall aesthetics and story they have. Sonic's World is supposed to be more lively and Flamboyant

Yes, and it's pretty weird how we went from Sonic Mania, Sonic Forces, and the possible seizure fuel that was Team Sonic Racing, to this dark and drab world.  BOTW also benefited from a distinctive visual style that prevented its world from looking too bleak and trite.  This game looks like Sonic's still-cartoony model shoved into stock Unreal Engine terrain.