Sonic Frontiers Leaks & Spoilers Thread - PLEASE READ OP

[Diogenes]

I wouldn't hold my breath for original level themes. The most sensible explanation for these levels at this point is that they're virtual reconstructions built from the characters' memories, and I wouldn't expect them to just suddenly drop that concept. Off the top of my head, I can think of 3 explanations for new themes that would work with that. First is just "naked cyberspace", the virtual world without a specific memory attached; it's possible, but kind of boring, it's not going to do enough to shake off that old zone stink. Second, we get "memories" from the time between games. Something like the untold story of how Sonic and Eggman first met, which just happens to be in this new location we just made up. Could be an opportunity to flesh out the characters a bit if they attached some actual narrative to them, but I'm not sure they could come up with enough significant "untold stories" to make it work. Third, we get the memories of some new character, mystery ghost girl or whoever else might've been involved in the history of these islands. That seems like the most compelling reason to be going on memory dives, but the problem with these last two is that it's assigning more narrative weight to cyberspace than I think we're going to get. It's hard to guess anything about how this game's story is going to go down considering it feels like they're hiding that more than anything else, but it's hard to imagine unlocking one level and getting some significant narrative events dumped on you, and then unlocking another and it, it's just Sky Sanctuary man you know what it is you've been here before just run to the end who cares.

So I'm expecting this to be just another nostalgia trip. Maybe not all Generations levels, maybe not all levels recent enough that they can recycle old assets, but I wouldn't count on there being wholly new ones.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Is it me or is this beginning to basically sound like Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.

Main character ends up within a mysterious and mythical new locale, separated from his friends, and loses/is losing their memories, forcing them to go through reconstructions of locales made up of their past memories in order to progress onwards throughout the game. As such, game has an excuse to reuse locales from previous game in order to make up a significant portion of gameplay here.

[Razule]

I feel obligated to point out that we don't necessarily know that the Cyber-space stages are just Generations stages, but.. I can't really imagine them using Green Hill and Sky Sanctuary, and not also Chemical Plant. And at that point it might as well be all of them, but we just don't know for sure.

Gotta wonder which is the chicken or the egg. 

• They pitched the linear stages being past levels to represent memories, and then some exec said they might as well just reuse stuff from the decade old game that did a similar thing
• They had a limited budget with the memory stage concept, and reusing Generations themes was the best option with the resources available. Those stages were picked for a reason, right? Who'd want new recreations..

[Ratcicle King]

9 hours ago, MightyGems said:

Well, reusing assets is not as simple as a copy and paste as some may think. Keep in mind, Sonic Generations used the original Hedgehog Engine, and was on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Frontiers is on new systems such as the Xbox Series X and PS5, not to mention the Switch, and the PC. Generations is back then and Frontiers is now. They would likely have had to redo the Sky Sanctuary and Green Hill assets from Generations to include them, and if they had different level design from Generations, programming those stages makes it more different from what was in Generations. And that is not counting Sonic Forces, which did not even have Sky Sanctuary.

I believe some of you may know this, but just wanted to say.

Ok but like

Even assuming this is accurate to how the development was, that's worse? Because they went through all this effort instead of just... Making a new stage.

9 hours ago, light-gaia said:

We don't know the story yet, so who knows. But, I think if all the cyberspace levels were from Generations, the leakers would mention that. We had tones of leakers mentioning the cyberspace levels, and none of them mentioned they are the same old Generations levels.

One leaker mentioned the game having a Green Hill-style stage, but called "Spring Hill" and a chemical plant-style stage, too, but not exactly the same chemical plant, just a similar theming.

The only "leaker" who mentioned they are the same stages from Generations is not reliable.

I wouldn't take any leaker's word as gospel beyond the original Rangers leak and MAYBE the one that had pitch slideshow pictures. Plenty of fake ones started to pop up as soon as the Rangers one was discovered. 

1 hour ago, Razule said:

Gotta wonder which is the chicken or the egg. 

• They pitched the linear stages being past levels to represent memories, and then some exec said they might as well just reuse stuff from the decade old game that did a similar thing
• They had a limited budget with the memory stage concept, and reusing Generations themes was the best option with the resources available. Those stages were picked for a reason, right? Who'd want new recreations..

Given how Cyberspace seemed like an afterthought going by the development interviews and the main thing they were focused on was making open world Sonic work, I'm inclined to believe they had from the get go planned on recycling old zones again both because for some ungodly reason they seem to think people still want that and because they wanted to keep focused on tinkering with the open zone.

But who knows, I can definitely see a SEGA exec telling them to focus on Open World because ''that's the new cool thing'' and telling them to just reuse Generations stages because people loved Generations.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Like someone else mentioned, they could also be utilizing Sonic Forces levels if they're recycling assets anyway.
Heck, if Generations' assets are good enough to recycle, so should Team Sonic Racing, Sonic Colors Ultimate, Sonic Forces, Sonic Lost world and Sonic All Stars Transformed be.
Go make a whole new collection of 7 levels recycled from all of those games to go trough Sonic's entire life.

I Mean, if we're going to jog Sonic's memory with these levels, him being locked up (And Tortured?...) inside the Death Egg for 6 months in Sonic Forces should be a vital part of his memory at this point, you'd think?
I mean, haha, I'm 99% sure Sonic Team didn't pick these levels on the importance they'd have on Sonic's psyche but only how iconic they are, so I doubt they put much thought into it. But if they  did, there ya go. Death Egg from Forces confirmed. Not to most thrilling zone from that game, tough.

Altough really, as soon as Sonic goes trough the Green Hill Zone level, his memory should be entirely fixed. That should jog memories of 80% of his adventures at this point.

Also agreed with an earlier statement, if we're going to spend so much time focusing on Sonic's amnesia, there better be a payoff to it rather then just "Sonic now remembers all the things even casual Sonic fans already knew by default, hooray!"
Indeed, Breath of the Wild is a new incarnation of the Zelda cast AND has a 100 year skip, so plenty for the Amnesia plot to uncover. So making Sonic have Amnesia again, does that mean they're going to do something with that concept?
Either showing us parts of Sonic's history we never saw before, or also utilizing a timeskip before the events of Frontiers that we have to uncover? Or at the very least, that Sonic having Amnesia makes him behave incorrectly toward his older friends and enemies because he doesn't know who they are? SOMETHING?

Considering how much Sonic Forces completely and utterly WASTED it's entire premise and did ZERO interesting things with Eggman ruling the world and even the Phamtom Ruby only have 2 or 3 cool moments at most, I ain't very hopeful.
I'm sure Ian Flynn will try to force half an interesting idea in somewhere, but as just being the script doctor, there ain't that much he can do about it either. Not to mention, his own Amnesia plot in Sonic IDW was laughably pointless too.


Heh, the fact Sonic Forces did create new assets to create a different Green Hill Zone is funny. Like, what if they DID create brand new assets, just to make them look like levels that look recycled anyway? Ouch.  Same way all the poor artists at Sega put so much work and care into Frontier's overworld, just for everyone to go "Eh, looks like Unreal Engine assetflips to me". Oof.
Just goes to show it ain't just about the physical hard work, but the artistic design of the thing matters a lot too. You'd think Sonic Team of all developers shouldn't need to learn this lesson, but there ya go.

[Razule]

It's weird. I'd never look at an extremely realistic painting and say "derivitive, not stylish enough", but for a video-game, or even any photorealistic CGI in anything, I'm just not impressed anymore.

I can't explain why I feel this way even though I know they both must take a lot, if not, as much effort. 

[Pumkin_22]

28 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Like someone else mentioned, they could also be utilizing Sonic Forces levels if they're recycling assets anyway.
Heck, if Generations' assets are good enough to recycle, so should Team Sonic Racing, Sonic Colors Ultimate, Sonic Forces, Sonic Lost world and Sonic All Stars Transformed be.
Go make a whole new collection of 7 levels recycled from all of those games to go trough Sonic's entire life.

I Mean, if we're going to jog Sonic's memory with these levels, him being locked up (And Tortured?...) inside the Death Egg for 6 months in Sonic Forces should be a vital part of his memory at this point, you'd think?
I mean, haha, I'm 99% sure Sonic Team didn't pick these levels on the importance they'd have on Sonic's psyche but only how iconic they are, so I doubt they put much thought into it. But if they  did, there ya go. Death Egg from Forces confirmed. Not to most thrilling zone from that game, tough.

Altough really, as soon as Sonic goes trough the Green Hill Zone level, his memory should be entirely fixed. That should jog memories of 80% of his adventures at this point.

Also agreed with an earlier statement, if we're going to spend so much time focusing on Sonic's amnesia, there better be a payoff to it rather then just "Sonic now remembers all the things even casual Sonic fans already knew by default, hooray!"
Indeed, Breath of the Wild is a new incarnation of the Zelda cast AND has a 100 year skip, so plenty for the Amnesia plot to uncover. So making Sonic have Amnesia again, does that mean they're going to do something with that concept?
Either showing us parts of Sonic's history we never saw before, or also utilizing a timeskip before the events of Frontiers that we have to uncover? Or at the very least, that Sonic having Amnesia makes him behave incorrectly toward his older friends and enemies because he doesn't know who they are? SOMETHING?

Considering how much Sonic Forces completely and utterly WASTED it's entire premise and did ZERO interesting things with Eggman ruling the world and even the Phamtom Ruby only have 2 or 3 cool moments at most, I ain't very hopeful.
I'm sure Ian Flynn will try to force half an interesting idea in somewhere, but as just being the script doctor, there ain't that much he can do about it either. Not to mention, his own Amnesia plot in Sonic IDW was laughably pointless too.


Heh, the fact Sonic Forces did create new assets to create a different Green Hill Zone is funny. Like, what if they DID create brand new assets, just to make them look like levels that look recycled anyway? Ouch.  Same way all the poor artists at Sega put so much work and care into Frontier's overworld, just for everyone to go "Eh, looks like Unreal Engine assetflips to me". Oof.
Just goes to show it ain't just about the physical hard work, but the artistic design of the thing matters a lot too. You'd think Sonic Team of all developers shouldn't need to learn this lesson, but there ya go.

Yeah lmao, I don't mind if they reuse assets (although reusing levels doesn't mean that (+ I highly doubt they will reuse Gens assets)), I still think it's a neat concept on its own right, but then it would mean that Frontiers is a reboot, because it wouldn't make sense (to me) otherwise...

21 minutes ago, Razule said:

It's weird. I'd never look at an extremely realistic painting and say "derivitive, not stylish enough", but for a video-game, or even any photorealistic CGI in anything, I'm just not impressed anymore.

I can't explain why I feel this way even though I know they both must take a lot, if not, as much effort. 

It's mainly because (the best way I can explain it to you is) we have seen this before, many times in fact, so when people get used to amazing graphics, it's not cherished as a technical achievement, but just as a normality, or annoyance, it's like in Business, when people get used to your low prices, making them more expensive wouldn't be appreciated, so people would reject your products.

[Spooky Mulder]

I just can't see Crisis City showing up in Sonic Frontiers so my guess is that we won't see all of Generations stages again.

 

[LegoFedora]

4 minutes ago, Spooky Mulder said:

I just can't see Crisis City showing up in Sonic Frontiers so my guess is that we won't see all of Generations stages again.

Now that you mention it, I wonder if this game can serve as Sonic Team's definitive stance on where/if 06 takes place in the timeline. If they included crisis city, then would Sonic regain the memories of 06 for the rest of the timeline? Or would that stage be the one scenario Sonic wouldn't remember any context for.

Sonic Team could do a lot with this "reliving the past" idea in terms of setting the canon straight, really hoping they realize that and don't waste this oppurtunity. If they're going to cut corners and reuse past assets and levels designs, they could at least benefit from it hopefully, even if for something as miniscule as the sonic canon.

[Sonikko]

Pretty sure most of you are putting more thought into this than ST did to begin with during the pre-production meetings.

They probably chose to rehash level themes because the general public goes "ooh green hill", and they recognize it as Sonic material, and also, they have the assets ready to go, they have to convert the materials to pbr, but I doubt that's too big of a problem, since Generations stages import in Forces are a pretty common thing.

EDIT: I also wouldn't be surprised if Sky Sanctuary was meant to be in Forces and then became cut content, given it was present in Speed Battle before the game came out, meaning they already had the assets to begin with.

[Razule]

If there's 7 stages with multiple acts in Frontiers, two from Generations would have to get dropped. The one Sonic wouldn't remember would probably be one to go. Maybe, I wouldn't past them to include Crisis City anyway.

[Kuzu]

19 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Pretty sure most of you are putting more thought into this than ST did to begin with during the pre-production meetings.

They probably chose to rehash level themes because the general public goes "ooh green hill", and they recognize it as Sonic material, and also, they have the assets ready to go, they have to convert the materials to pbr, but I doubt that's too big of a problem, since Generations stages import in Forces are a pretty common thing.

EDIT: I also wouldn't be surprised if Sky Sanctuary was meant to be in Forces and then became cut content, given it was present in Speed Battle before the game came out, meaning they already had the assets to begin with.

 

That's just it, I don't think the public gives as much of a fuck about that as much as they think they do. Forces having Green Hill and Chemical Plant didn't stop that game from getting middling reception. So I can't really understand why doing that again would be their first choice. 

[pppp]

48 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

That's just it, I don't think the public gives as much of a fuck about that as much as they think they do. Forces having Green Hill and Chemical Plant didn't stop that game from getting middling reception. So I can't really understand why doing that again would be their first choice. 

First in 2013 they ape the most popular Nintendo game at the time(Galaxy) while still reusing Green Hill and Casino Night aesthetics.

Then in 2017 they reuse Green Hill and Chemical Plant

Now in 2022 they reuse more Generations levels again while once again aping the most popular Nintendo game at the time(BOTW).

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

So the only possible explanation to your question is insanity.

Sonic Team are by the very deifinition completely insane.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

The funny thing is, if Crisis City is included as a level, it would actually be a Sonic Generations level in story context rather then a Sonic 06 one, since Sonic's only memory of that place should be when the Time Eater randomly send him to a alternative timeline where the world is in flames.

Hey, at least it'll give Frontiers a chance to finally have Sonic actually react to something that should have been an extremely alarming and confusing moment in Generations for Sonic we never got .

[Ratcicle King]

2 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

The funny thing is, if Crisis City is included as a level, it would actually be a Sonic Generations level in story context rather then a Sonic 06 one, since Sonic's only memory of that place should be when the Time Eater randomly send him to a alternative timeline where the world is in flames.

Hey, at least it'll give Frontiers a chance to finally have Sonic actually react to something that should have been an extremely alarming and confusing moment in Generations for Sonic we never got .

I honestly don't think we'll get Sonic reacting to every single cyberspace level, I think at most we'll get some scenes of him remembering his friends after a specific number of stages done but no mention of the locations or adventures themselves. If Generations didn't do it when it was literally the main point of the game, I don't see Frontiers, which has an actual plot, spending some time to delve into that.

[Wraith]

Asset reuse is definitely the main reason it's happening. The memory stuff is just me speculating on easy ways to justify it within narrative. Imo even if they didn't have a good justification for it it'd still be happening. There are many benefits to asset reuse on the developer's side.

[Jango]

23 minutes ago, Ratcicle King said:

If Generations didn't do it when it was literally the main point of the game, I don't see Frontiers, which has an actual plot, spending some time to delve into that.

Man, this is something that really pissed me off back then. Sonic only makes a comment about Green Hill and Chemical Plant. So lame. The name of that game is wasted pontential. Sonic Team really lives by that moto tbh...

[Scar]

On 6/17/2022 at 11:33 PM, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

You're far from alone in that sentiment.

Honestly, Lost World did have a very good sense of control. And the parkour system was a nice implementation used for speed and momentum. Part of why I'm glad to see it come back in some shape or form for Frontiers.

Please god no. The whole push button to go slightly less slowly, and push button to "parkour" (i.e run on walls) was terrible.

[Red Hot Jack]

They think Green Hill and Chemical Plant are iconic and popular, recognisable. But assets reuse is the main reason. But I hope they reuse Casino Park assets from TSR, Metropolis from Forces, at least. Maybe Starlight Carnival from Colors Ultimate. I am really desperate right now to have stages from different games.

[StaticMania]

17 minutes ago, Scar said:

Please god no. The whole push button to go slightly less slowly, and push button to "parkour" (i.e run on walls) was terrible.

A minor inconvenience.

But since that was a prime mechanic in that game, even without a run button...you probably would've still had to press "a" button to run along the walls...

[NoKaine]

Considering that people who aren't so into Sonic ask why the open world doesn't literally look like Green Hill or similar levels, yes, Green Hill is still memorable and iconic for many people, and that is also likely the reason why these stages return as well. The contrast between the mysterious open world grounded with the very familiar levels from Sonic's past. Keeps people from thinking that hyper-realistic Sonic is the new direction for Sonic and not the particular identity of this game.

People who played these levels have given near-unanimous positive response (I only say "near" because I'm sure there are previewers who have differing opinions but everyone who actually talked about them have been positive, even the damn playtesters), among Sonic fans and non-Sonic fans and among people who like and didn't like the open world. This is also why I find the idea that Sonic Team is NDA'ing these levels because they're afraid of backlash or something, because, like, no, everybody who actually played them liked them, and they are likely tied heavily to the narrative too. That's why they're saving it for a surprise.

IGN and TheGamer's impressions on these levels are particularly interesting because they allude to the idea that these levels themselves actually help bring the whole game together as well. They really like it, and they would probably recognize the levels as being so similar to the past games.

Quote

There’s another core gameplay mechanic in Sonic Frontiers that, according to the NDA I signed, I’m not allowed to talk about until June 29. If you’ve been following the IGN First coverage, however, it’s already been revealed and widely discussed. I’ll have a lot more to say about it in a couple of weeks, because it’s a major part of the game and I think it’s great.

https://www.thegamer.com/sonic-frontiers-preview-summer-game-fest/

This place is a tight bubble of fans who barely even tolerate the game the Sky Sanctuary assets are taken from, despite it being pretty much the most highest-rated 3D Sonic game in years and legitimately liked and loved by many, many people. Sonic Team does have a very good reason to think that the returning levels will generally be well-received. 

I'm not a cynical binnie so I don't think Sonic Team thought "we should just bank on nostalgia again!" and that was it, though I won't deny that it's definitely part of it. They probably leveraged the costs of having to make wholly original and detailed individual levels on top of making big, expansive individual open zones and worked accordingly. 

Having the returning levels would accomplish two things: 1. assets to be reused to lower the cost and time, 2. a way to have immediately recognizable Sonic elements in this game about a new, unrecognizable Sonic game without necessarily compromising it. These two ideas are not bad and are not "creatively bankrupt." The biggest problem is that other games have done this, but even then, Frontiers so far has a unique advantage of tying these levels in with the identity of the game and the story in a way that is more "the game with the old levels in it."

This is all assuming, of course, that all the assets are literally taken from Generations, that they are not remixed in any noticeable way, and there are no original themes or even reused themes from games not called Generations, which is the worst-case scenario.

[DaBigJ]

I don't think it's entirely fair to call this place a "bubble who can't tolerate Sonic Generations" but ok.

[NoKaine]

1 minute ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

I don't think it's entirely fair to call this place a "bubble who can't tolerate Sonic Generations" but ok.

Probably not.

It's definitely a bubble, though. My point is that generally, people will likely be less reprehensive of the reused levels and assets, with the fact that no one who played it complained about that aspect yet. 

[Wraith]

25 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

Considering that people who aren't so into Sonic ask why the open world doesn't literally look like Green Hill or similar levels, yes, Green Hill is still memorable and iconic for many people, and that is also likely the reason why these stages return as well. The contrast between the mysterious open world grounded with the very familiar levels from Sonic's past. Keeps people from thinking that hyper-realistic Sonic is the new direction for Sonic and not the particular identity of this game.

If they were seriously concerned about this they would have picked one artstyle for the game that suits Sonic's identity.

 

 

[NoKaine]

12 minutes ago, Wraith said:

If they were seriously concerned about this they would have picked one artstyle for the game that suits Sonic's identity.

They did. The returning levels. Those have the art style that suits Sonic's identity. That is because they are supposed to show what "Sonic's world" looks like. 

The open world does not look like Sonic's world. Sonic Team's decision to make the open world look the way it does is acknowledging the fact that it does not look like a typical Sonic game. Same with the weird geometric enemies. It would not work if the world did look like a Sonic world, and the enemies were Sonic enemies.

People recognizing that it does not look like Sonic is what Sonic Team intends.

This is not a perfect execution, obviously. The world could look more interesting without being "Sonic." Things like the randomly floating rails is a weird compromise. And the cyberspace levels do not have to be literally Sky Sanctuary for this work.

But it's a pretty simple premise to accept. Sonic is in a new, unfamiliar world. It literally does not look like a Sonic world. There are Sonic locations from past games to sell the contrast. "This is what Sonic looks like."

They're not "concerned", by the way. Pretty sure they made this decision pretty early on.