Sonic Frontiers Leaks & Spoilers Thread - PLEASE READ OP

[Wraith]

9 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

I mean, yes that's true. The planning stages are largely getting bypassed here. But is it really worth it? Like, they actually want their game to be this unoriginal? I'm almost surprised that Sonic Team themselves aren't as sick of nostalgia baiting as we are. 

Like I said earlier I don't think anyone who's not a hardcore fan will notice. That's probably what they're banking on. Sucks for us but most Sonic fans are buying in no matter what so I guess it's worth taking a hit there.

[Sega DogTagz]

19 minutes ago, Starnik said:

This would an odd idea. Outside the die hard Sonic community, most people are okay with Green Hills. No one at the event even seems to care.

GHZ isn't the problem. Reusing the same level design is. You had to know the second that footage hit YouTube people were going to drag it through the mud.

 

People at the even may not seem to care. They may not even have noticed. But you had to know what would have happened on the internet when you throw such an obvious retread right in front of our faces as a first impression. Its red meat to a wolf. 

 

 

[StellarBlur]

So it looks like to me that each level theme is likely to get 3 stages: 2 3D ones and 1 2D one with at least two different times of days. Man, this whole reusing level layouts from past games really rubbed me the wrong way. With that said, I smiled when I saw the SA2 layout. I guess it makes me feel a bit better to know it won't just be Gens/Unleashed layouts and that they might potentially tie it to the story.

[Starnik]

3 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

GHZ isn't the problem. Reusing the same level design is. You had to know the second that footage hit YouTube people were going to drag it through the mud.

People at the even may not seem to care. They may not even have noticed. But you had to know what would have happened on the internet when you throw such an obvious retread right in front of our faces as a first impression. Its red meat to a wolf. 

Would you be mad if it was a different level from Sonic Adventure or something? Seems people are more mad about it being Green Hills then anything else. 

[StellarBlur]

Something I'd like is one major Cyberspace level prior to reaching the Titan of each island so we could get at least 1 significant level per island that would be unique, memorable and part of Frontiers' identity. I mean a proper original level with setpieces with a decent length.

[ZinogreVolt]

60 people on such an enormous game already is quite small, so they probably settled on reusing old stuff to not thin its team any further. Either that or staff gets put through the meat grinder to make levels that potentially won't even satisfy.

[Starnik]

7 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

60 people on such an enormous game already is quite small, so they probably settled on reusing old stuff to not thin its team any further. Either that or staff gets put through the meat grinder to make levels that potentially won't even satisfy.

How many developers did Zelda have? 

[Wraith]

6 minutes ago, Starnik said:

How many developers did Zelda have? 

Around 300 developers worked on it by the end.

[Starnik]

1 minute ago, Wraith said:

Around 300 developers worked on it by the end.

Wow, that’s a lot by comparison to Sonic Team. I guess that’s why they needed five years. 

[Razule]

It's a given most people won't recognize the level design. I'm one of them! The idea it's fine for them to reuse their "own" work because of that doesn't sit right with me at all though. Even if I'd enjoy it, I couldn't give this game any credit for it. If this was the main game and the open-zone was a big hub world like we were speculating before I'd think this was completely unacceptable, but it isn't. This is a side dish. 

If you're underwhelmed by the open-zone's features and were looking to Cyber-Space for a new linear Sonic experience like what we're used to (which I was and still kind of am), then you're SOL. There's a reason that Cyber Space isn't the part of the game they're proudly showing off in all the marketing. It's the past, and it's what they're moving away from, towards a more action-adventure focused experience than a platform-based one.

[light-gaia]

I don't think 60 developers is a small team for a Sonic game. Zelda had 300+ people, but Zelda has a higher scope and way more mechanics than Sonic. Sonic Frontiers apparently doesn't have the same complex physics system of Zelda BotW, for example. I think we should compare with Mario Odyssey. Mario is also a platformer and had about 60~70 developers if you exclude people in charge of localization and stuff. I think 60 people working on a game for 5 years is a good amount of people for a platformer

[___-_]

26 minutes ago, Starnik said:

Would you be mad if it was a different level from Sonic Adventure or something? Seems people are more mad about it being Green Hills then anything else. 

For me, its not even just the fact that it’s GHZ and all the other zones again. All that we’ve seen so far seems to be specifically pulled from Generations / Unleashed.
 

If it was a retread of, say, Windy Valley, even a 1-1 recreation of it, I probably wouldn’t be as mad since it’d show they at least did something from the ground up. Here, and with all the years of Sonic Team just reusing the same stuff over and over again, it just speaks to me that they’re creatively bankrupt and have just taken the easy way out of things. It’s safe and easy because they know City Escape is a fan favorite and they probably already had this section in the back burner when making Generations before deciding to use more iconic portions of that zone for the final product.
 

I just wish they just stop doing this shit. No one is asking them to do this. To me, this looks like an absolute waste of time if they’re just going to do generations all over again. Why do they have to constantly throw in some extraneous part of a game inside another game instead of just focusing on the main course? Just why?

[azoo]

Hey guys, remember how GameLand from Colors reused Sonic 1 level layouts? 

If not, you do now. Also remember who directed that one?

Yeah. Kishimoto just likes making bonus levels out of past game layouts. I think that's all there is to it here.

[Starnik]

3 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

I don't think 60 developers is a small team for a Sonic game. Zelda had 300+ people, but Zelda has a higher scope and way more mechanics than Sonic. Sonic Frontiers apparently doesn't have the same complex physics system of Zelda BotW, for example. I think we should compare with Mario Odyssey. Mario is also a platformer and had about 60~70 developers if you exclude people in charge of localization and stuff. I think 60 people working on a game for 5 years is a good amount of people for a platformer

60 people seems like a smallish team to me. But if the game is good then I won’t worry about the number of developers for the game.

[DaBigJ]

4 minutes ago, azoo said:

Hey guys, remember how GameLand from Colors reused Sonic 1 level layouts? 

If not, you do now. Also remember who directed that one?

Yeah. Kishimoto just likes making bonus levels out of past game layouts. I think that's all there is to it here.

It sucked back in colors, and it sucks now.

Hm, I'm starting to think Kishimoto isn't a good director

[Sega DogTagz]

41 minutes ago, Starnik said:

Would you be mad if it was a different level from Sonic Adventure or something? Seems people are more mad about it being Green Hills then anything else. 

Complaining about the aesthetics is an entirely different issue. Sure people will gripe about the same old GHZ, CPZ, SS for the 1000th time, but the meat and potatoes of the problem here isn't the level aesthetics but the fact that they are literally recreating the same set pieces, the same level geometry and the same script beats and dashing our hopes of receiving a fair amount of new content to look forward to in the cyberspace levels.

 

Seeing GHZ again strikes a nerve, but the calls over the dev's being "lazy" and the reason why this is such a big problem with a lot of people is because they are beat for beat copying old work. They might as well be the guy on Deviantart who traces and posts it to their own account. It doesn't matter what game they take from, or what aesthetic they use. You can build a GHZ without copy/pasting the same rails and loops. We had a low bar to ask for, and somehow they slide right under that too.

 

 

[Starnik]

4 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Complaining about the aesthetics is an entirely different issue. Sure people will gripe about the same old GHZ, CPZ, SS for the 1000th time, but the meat and potatoes of the problem here isn't the level aesthetics but the fact that they are literally recreating the same set pieces, the same level geometry and the same script beats and dashing our hopes of receiving a fair amount of new content to look forward to in the cyberspace levels.

Seeing GHZ again strikes a nerve, but the calls over the dev's being "lazy" and the reason why this is such a big problem with a lot of people is because they are beat for beat copying old work. They might as well be the guy on Deviantart who traces and posts it to their own account. It doesn't matter what game they take from, or what aesthetic they use. You can build a GHZ without copy/pasting the same rails and loops. We had a low bar to ask for, and somehow they slide right under that too.

I just asked because I think some people wouldn’t care if it tickled THEIR nostalgia. But since some are already sick of green hills, they might be extra prickly about it.

[ZinogreVolt]

7 minutes ago, azoo said:

Hey guys, remember how GameLand from Colors reused Sonic 1 level layouts? 

If not, you do now. Also remember who directed that one?

Yeah. Kishimoto just likes making bonus levels out of past game layouts. I think that's all there is to it here.

I don't recall Forces or Lost World having any old layouts in its bonus stages, but the precedent Colors set is certainly interesting.

[Razule]

5 minutes ago, azoo said:

Hey guys, remember how GameLand from Colors reused Sonic 1 level layouts? 

If not, you do now. Also remember who directed that one?

Yeah. Kishimoto just likes making bonus levels out of past game layouts. I think that's all there is to it here.

Yeah. It'd probably be fun to point out "hey, that's X Zone from Sonic Whatever" if reusing old stuff wasn't something that's become so infamous for Sonic fans. I doubt anyone cared about this back then.

 

[castell-neath]

If they want to keep cyberspace levels short to help develop and "transition" to the open zone formula, ok...but at least give boost fans something to enjoy.  Us OGs recently had origins...ok, there was colours ultimate recently i guess. 

I just really do hope for at least 1 mega long cyberspace level per island. 

If the story is to "jog" Sonic's memory, it would have been really cool to have a level or two in the old school 2d format before transitioning to full 3d.

[Sega DogTagz]

3 minutes ago, Starnik said:

I just asked because I think some people wouldn’t care if it tickled THEIR nostalgia. But since some are already sick of green hills, they might be extra picky about it.

I mean to a degree sure. But you don't see people holding back on the city level. Its clearly copying and even though it's an original aesthetic, it's going to carry the same negative label as the rest. 

For context, unleashed is my favorite game. Doesn't mean I'm happy to see them lean so heavily on it. 

Having GHZ again is just getting kicked while your down I guess. 

Old level themes and old level geometry? You kicking me in both the nads. Independently and then again at the same time. Stop bullying me Sonic Team. 

 

[Razule]

6 minutes ago, Starnik said:

I just asked because I think some people wouldn’t care if it tickled THEIR nostalgia. But since some are already sick of green hills, they might be extra prickly about it.

Windmill Isle Act 1's layout would theoretically appeal to my nostalgia, but I was too busy being struck by the audacity.

[azoo]

Instead of giving you a dozen or more cyberspace levels per island and a gameplay loop of collecting all seven Emeralds over and over, they probably should've just had you collect all the emeralds one time, slowly across the course of the game as the sanctuaries are spread across the various islands. That way, they wouldn't need to pad out cyberspace stages so much and could've just made 7 fully developed new zones.

But I guess with this progression they realized it was more immediate to the player + resembled BoTW more (+ according to the leaks, lets you fight a mega-titan as Super Sonic at every island), and so now there's a ludicrous number of cyberspace stages; so many that they decide to fill in most of the blanks with microscopic level layout reskins of past games to halfway save effort and halfway wink-and-nod GameLand style.

All of this is pretty wild to do with what we assume is not a very big staff for making a game on this scale. I just don't understand why they took this path.. how many times are they gonna bite off more than they can chew?

 

[Starnik]

6 minutes ago, castell-neath said:

If they want to keep cyberspace levels short to help develop and "transition" to the open zone formula, ok...but at least give boost fans something to enjoy.  Us OGs recently had origins...ok, there was colours ultimate recently i guess. 

I just really do hope for at least 1 mega long cyberspace level per island. 

If the story is to "jog" Sonic's memory, it would have been really cool to have a level or two in the old school 2d format before transitioning to full 3d.

We have several boost games already. The boost levels are not usually that long.

 

1 minute ago, azoo said:

Instead of giving you a dozen or more cyberspace levels per island and a gameplay loop of collecting all seven Emeralds over and over, they probably should've just had you collect all the emeralds one time, slowly across the course of the game.

That way, they wouldn't need to pad out cyberspace stages so much and could've just made 7 fully developed new zones. But I guess with this progression they realized it was more immediate to the player, and so now there's a million cyberspace stages; so many that they decide to fill in most of the blanks with microscopic level layout reskins of past games.

All of this is pretty wild to do with what we assume is not a very big staff for making a game on this scale. I just don't understand why they took this path.. how many times are they gonna bite off more than they can chew?

We’re collecting the emeralds over and over again? Are you suggesting seven cyberspace levels? I’m confused.

[Wraith]

They probably wanted to emulate Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild's 'microdose of dopamine' style of gameplay loop where you get a lot of bite sized challenges as you explore a larger map, rather than a longer challenge that pays off later. I prefer the latter style of game and think that makes more sense for Sonic but I think this will play well with most people.