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

[Cosmos Rogue]

The art style in Sonic Team's games has been going downhill for awhile. Given that reality, is it surprising that their next game is visually dull and uncreative when the entire project appears to be a knock off of another game?

[Scritch the Cat]

1 hour ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

The art style in Sonic Team's games has been going downhill for awhile. Given that reality, is it surprising that their next game is visually dull and uncreative when the entire project appears to be a knock off of another game?

As odd as this is, yeah kind of.  I can't say I was ever a big proponent of the weird patterned terrain of Lost World, let alone of the Zeti, and I think it's rather absurd that when Sonic forces replaced the human bystanders with animal bystanders for the presumed reason that "humans don't fit in well with Sonic characters", the rest of the animals and the rookie in that game also don't match Sonic's art style well.  But those games at least had plenty of color and detail in their environments. 

This game looks, well, like reality.  Dull reality.  I think Sonic can get away with realism when it's a stage like Casinopolis or Crisis City, since those give plenty in-universe excuse to make realistic terrain flamboyant, but a standard, relatively sparse countryside?  Drab.  There's art style going downhill, and then there's flat-out not having an art style and instead playing a sight totally rote.

[CertifiedNobody]

On 5/13/2022 at 12:02 AM, Guy Strong said:

Sure, but nobody likes Knuckles' exploration based gameplay though right?

There are people that dislike it?

[Cosmos Rogue]

1 hour ago, CertifiedNobody said:

There are people that dislike it?

There are reasons that people started asking for "just Sonic" gameplay, and treasure hunting was one of the biggest.

[Scritch the Cat]

2 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

There are people that dislike it?

Even when SA2 was widely beloved people generally at least agreed that it was the weakest part.  

My opinion is it would be decent if not for the radar being inexplicably worse than it was in SA1; however, I think there’s a bigger problem with character’s whole play style being to search for three things, no more and no less, in every level, because reasons.  Plot-wise it’s contrived, while gameplay-wise it turns what should be a character’s strength into a bit of an obnoxious, repetitive burden.  But on that note I do think they could do a lot with Knuckles if they kept in his radar and had it beep for goodies of all sorts in otherwise normal Sonic levels.  It’s possible to give other objectives to Knuckles besides collecting macguffins.

[Dr. Detective]

Every time I look at that trailer I actually get more impressed by it. I keep noticing new things that I didn't see before and the allure of running through all that feels like it fits my sensiblities perfectly.

Despite that, summoning excitement for it hasn't happened yet. Forces really did a number on me.

[BubbleButt TV]

Frontiers art style is definitely a huge change from Forces and Lost World. Sachiko Kawamura has been doing art direction since Unleashed. In fact both her and Yoshihisa Hashimoto were a big part of why Unleashed looked really good. I think maybe she's trying to evoke a similar style that she did with Unleashed

So if anything I think Frontiers art style will be more similar to Unleashed than '06.

[Wraith]

I don't get it. Looks like Sonic to me.

Coming off of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic Adventure, Sonic 06 or Sonic Unleashed it's hard for me to say Frontiers betrays those aesthetic sensibilities. Sonic has been dropped into realistic worlds with strange geometry since I was a toddler. It's not how I'd prefer the game to look. I talked at length about how I think they should have embraced a new artstyle earlier in the thread, but my first thought when I saw it coming off of Lost World/Forces was "Oh this one looks like a Sonic game, huh"

 

The most questionable thing about it for me is the use of color/lighting. In games like Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure, the colors really pop which gives a more  lively impression. I guess they could ratchet up the strange geometry too but they could just reveal that later.

[BubbleButt TV]

I think there is definitely an appeal in seeing surreal environments rendered in a somewhat realistic way

At the moment we really just need to see Sonic moving around in Frontiers' environment. 

[Muscles Maximum]

6 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

There are people that dislike it?

Um, yeah. Have you really not been around enough to have heard everyone and their grandmother complain about how terrible treasure hunting is?

This is coming from someone who’s biggest issue with treasure hunting in the Adventure’s is that you can complete the stages too quickly.

I actively want Knuckles and treasure hunting gameplay to return. Doesn’t mean everyone else wouldn’t hate it.

[Indigo Rush]

7 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

There are people that dislike it?

Oh, loads. Mech shooting levels, too. I love Sonic Adventure 2 and even I think they aren't that great. I can blow through them now because I grew up playing them, but even when I first played the Adventure games I was confused about what was going on. 

All mainline Sonic games had been about speedy platforming up until that point, and throwing what was essentially different games at the player wasn't going to gel with everyone. It's sort of the reason "I hate Sonic's dumb friends, just let me play as Sonic" was such a common complaint: the other characters didn't play like a Sonic game should. SEGA heard this and said "you got it, Sonic only" and misinterpreted so badly that they thought making a half-Sonic game half-God of War clone would be fine because it was "just Sonic."

[ComeAsYouAre]

Werehog in Unleashed was unironically worse than the Treasure Hunting because at least the Latter you could blitz if you memorize the areas while the werehog was like 70% of Unleashed in spite of being so damn dull. 

 

Imagine if the water areas were 70% of Sonic 2

[BubbleButt TV]

when people said "I hate Sonic's dumb friends!" they should've really been saying "I hate dumb forced alternate playstyles that completely go against the qualities I like in a Sonic game!"

doesn't roll off the tongue as well but at least it's more accurate

[Wraith]

27 minutes ago, BubbleButt TV said:

when people said "I hate Sonic's dumb friends!" they should've really been saying "I hate dumb forced alternate playstyles that completely go against the qualities I like in a Sonic game!"

doesn't roll off the tongue as well but at least it's more accurate

Or sega should just understand feedback on a basic level and try to reason what's causing the emotional reaction behind the words.

I also think characters just being irritating to listen to and hard to like played more of a part than most fans are willing to admit. Sonic is the character people like and want to see. Taking time away from that for someone else is already a risk. I's a complete waste of time if the character fails to endear the audience in any way. 

[DaBigJ]

If poor gameplay is tied to a character, then people are going to include that in their reasons of not liking the character. A lot of the friends were in that camp.

Not that hard to understand, really.

[knuckles20]

For what it’s worth there are fan projects that ultilize alternate characters in a full 3D environment while focusing on speed; two of which are Sonic GT and Adventure Chronicles.

 

 

[CertifiedNobody]

6 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Even when SA2 was widely beloved people generally at least agreed that it was the weakest part.  

My opinion is it would be decent if not for the radar being inexplicably worse than it was in SA1; however, I think there’s a bigger problem with character’s whole play style being to search for three things, no more and no less, in every level, because reasons.  Plot-wise it’s contrived, while gameplay-wise it turns what should be a character’s strength into a bit of an obnoxious, repetitive burden.  But on that note I do think they could do a lot with Knuckles if they kept in his radar and had it beep for goodies of all sorts in otherwise normal Sonic levels.  It’s possible to give other objectives to Knuckles besides collecting macguffins.

I've always heard Mech Stages were the weakest and Treasure Hunting, while not as great as the Speed Stages, still manages to keep the core focus of the gameplay intact but with a shift in focus to exploration, with big improvements in every way other than the radar.

Knuckles' treasure hunting abilities could be brought back in full force for Frontiers. Even if just as DLC, it could result in some fun side quests that make people familiarize themselves with the Starfall Islands.

8 hours ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

There are reasons that people started asking for "just Sonic" gameplay, and treasure hunting was one of the biggest.

I've never seen the issue. I get the complaints with mechs in SA2, since they do feel clunky, but the Treasure Hunting always just felt like they made a Sonic 3&K Knuckles level into 3D and added two more signposts for you to find. I guess they might feel like shit if you don't want to get decent at them.

[Zoomzeta]

17 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

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.

You are comparing what are small hubworlds to an entirely open world environment. 

I get where your concern is coming from, but there is a big difference between those 2 things. 

[Scritch the Cat]

8 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

You are comparing what are small hubworlds to an entirely open world environment. 

I get where your concern is coming from, but there is a big difference between those 2 things. 

Well when the point I was making is that I’m skeptical of their abilities, does it really matter?

[Scritch the Cat]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

Or sega should just understand feedback on a basic level and try to reason what's causing the emotional reaction behind the words.

I also think characters just being irritating to listen to and hard to like played more of a part than most fans are willing to admit. Sonic is the character people like and want to see. Taking time away from that for someone else is already a risk. I's a complete waste of time if the character fails to endear the audience in any way. 

Except that plenty of them did not fail.  Plenty of them do, in fact, have fans.  Just because you didn’t like them does not mean you get to pretend that many people didn’t.

Also Sonic himself has gotten jarringly obnoxious at points.  While I do tend to enjoy his portrayal overall in the “meta era”, he’s by nature a bit overbearing and his cocky attitude works best when I’m controlling it, not when I’m watching an extended scene of him mouthing off about how he’s going to beat down a robot.

As to annoying voices, it feels like most of the problems there are less down to bad acting and more the actor’s presumption that animals should sound squeaky or squawky or nasally or some combination.  In terms of outright bad acting in this series, it doesn’t get much worse than SA1 Knuckles half-heartedly commenting “Oh no” when Sonic knocks him down, but the voice itself isn’t really annoying.
 

But while annoying is very subjective, I hesitate to say the actors are outright wrong for giving cartoon animals weird voices when plenty of them who have them in the past, like Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, and Scooby Doo, are beloved icons.

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Except that plenty of them did not fail.  Plenty of them do, in fact, have fans.  Just because you didn’t like them does not mean you get to pretend that many people didn’t.

Cuts both ways; just because some people like them, doesn't mean there aren't a lot who don't. None of us have hard numbers on who is liked/hated by how many people but I think it's clear there was enough negative sentiment that Sega had to do something.

[Zoomzeta]

31 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Well when the point I was making is that I’m skeptical of their abilities, does it really matter?

Kind of. The scale and resources needed to make either one are wildly different from one another.

[Wraith]

31 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Except that plenty of them did not fail.  Plenty of them do, in fact, have fans.  Just because you didn’t like them does not mean you get to pretend that many people didn’t.

The Wisps, Orbot/Cubot and the Deadly Six also have fans and yet it's not considered offensive to shit on them like it is for C Cream and Charmy

[Dr. Detective]

It's true that SEGA had to do something. I definitely don't think that what they did and have been doing for 15 years was the correct thing to do. I'd have prefered they slowed down and gradually set about fixing things step by step with the cast instead of ignoring the generation that grew up with them for so long. 

I can understand wanting to start over with a few solo Sonic games and then experimenting a bit with the others as time passed. Often people who wanted the others back would get shot down in discussions about it, claiming that was the correct way to go about it and maybe they were right.

But that's not what they did. It's been so long. I'd honestly settle for anything I could get for the 3D games at this point when it comes to their playability.

The most important thing to me will always be how they work for the narrative. Being playable can definitely help get the most out of that, of course, but you get a good enough writer and it could probably work with only one person. Or at the very least you do it like Shadow the Hedgehog and have some nice tag alongs. Or something. There's a ton of ideas, some of which I've read in this thread, that could work.

It's true that it worked better for me and was more exciting and fun when I had access to everyone. That remains the best era of Sonic to me as per my enjoyment of it. However, I've been open minded to an era where things chill out but this past one just hasn't been doing it for me. I just think SEGA sucks at it.

[Iko]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

The Wisps, Orbot/Cubot and the Deadly Six also have fans and yet it's not considered offensive to shit on them like it is for C Cream and Charmy

It's just equally offensive, though the problem is that when you trashtalk the Deadly 6 it's less likely that someone will defend them, reasons might vary between they have less dedicated fans or a smaller number in general, or simply they aren't vocal enough (yet) because they're still too young, wathever. I think Infinite alone has more fans than all the d6 + wisps + Orbot & Cubot fused together, regardless of how bad his debut game was and it being relatively new to the series; with this I want to point out how the characters whose designs fit the standard guidelines of the main cast (antros or wathever) are usually more loved.

This said, I like Orbot & Cubot, and I think they should use them for bigger stuff than just being comic relief sidekicks (as I suggested in the past, I think they should be used for minibosses, combined to bigger bodies like the Egg Mobile does, and when you destroy the thing, they detach and run away, like the Egg Mobile indeed).

Speaking of voice acting, the only time when I found them annoying was in the final boss of Sonic Generations with the "homing shot" lame trash, and in general, voice acting and bad writing is not only an issue of Sonic's friends but of Sonic himself too, the recent games turned him into a very unlikable character.