Sonic Frontiers Leaks & Spoilers Thread - PLEASE READ OP

[Voyant]

32 minutes ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

Dude, don't poke the bear.

Major's Mask

Mario Galaxy 2

Halo 2

Dark Souls 3

Sonic Mania

---

I'm just saying... its a rather weak argument. Especially if Mania is in the upper sphere of quality personally. Sonic isn't some special franchise that is immune to asset or idea reusal.

It's what you DO with those assets that counts. And like... guys come on this is for most people the first 20mins of an open world game with 20 to 30 hours of potential content. I can understand being concerned mind you but people coming to distinct conclusions without further evidence its just... well just being negative for negative sake.

All these ideas and pieces have potential and that's why a lot of people are excited to see more. It what they DO with these things is what will make or break the game. To be fair considering the track record though thinking that any of these things can go anywhere major is pretty reasonable. 

 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Even if you weren't making false equivalences, I've seen this argument between so many of the same users so many times over the duration of this game's pre-release cycle that I guarantee, nothing either of you could say could possibly make it worth it.

[Shade Vortex]

14 hours ago, Voyant said:

Major's Mask

Mario Galaxy 2

Halo 2

Dark Souls 3

Sonic Mania

 

I get the point you're making , but I'm sorry, I gotta agree with Diogenes. Sonic games now release at a much slower pace and we're still seeing Green Hill Zone 10 years later after it first started frequently rearing its head again, only now Chemical Plant and more recently Sky Sanctuary have seemingly joined its "won't ever go away" status.

I'm a bit more okay with SS for now since we've only seen it maybe 4 times in the whole franchise, including Chaos Angel from Advance 3 (but not including mobile phone auto runners), but that will quickly change if it keeps appearing in every subsequent game. I liked seeing Chemical Plant and Sky Sanctuary in Generations. But then Chemical Plant has been in 3 out of the 5 Sonic games to come out since then (Forces, Mania and Frontiers- but of course, not Lost World or god forbid, Sonic Boom), and SS has been in 1 out of those 5 since then.

Let's put this another way. The last decent mainline Sonic game to not reuse locations so blatantly was Sonic Colors, over 10 years ago. Sonic Lost World had somewhat new level themes for the Sonic series or at least tried to somewhat make them different than before, but they were mostly Mario fare instead, and that game still had a Green Hill expy (as well as a Casino Night Expy and a Metropolis Expy).

And this time it's not just level themes, it's also level design. At what point do we raise an issue with this kind of thing? When they repackage old games wholesale and sell them to us for full price, with no changes?

 

[Voyant]

3 minutes ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

Even if you weren't making false equivalences, I've seen this argument between so many of the same users so many times over the duration of this game's pre-release cycle that I guarantee, nothing either of you could say could possibly make it worth it.

Eh... I'm just voicing an opinion and I've seen the greater discourse for this talk.

It's not any different for people thinking the same for Elden Ring. I just don't like when people let other things take a pass on it because it just has features that you like. If your gonna apply criticism make sure you stay consistent.

Elden Ring and Mania are among my favorite games of all time and they were accomplished by either reusing assets or or using familiar theming. Execution is always what matters at the end of the day. 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Again, look back through the archives of these threads if you want to see why that's a false equivalence.

[Voyant]

22 minutes ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

Again, look back through the archives of these threads if you want to see why that's a false equivalence.

Like I said it's just my opinion on why its not a big deal. Especially since with the level that is more inspired by City Escape. From what I see its still somewhat different in execution with some familiar themes. So here is too hoping that the later stages do more to change and adjust layouts and don't pull a green hill or a chemical plant when it comes to the earlier cyberspace ones.  

If Dio or others want to make some long winded quote tree breaking down why I'm absolutely wrong and I'm terrible person due to the fact that I treat cyberspace levels as basically special stages in this game then I'm just gonna be like w/e. 

I'm just happy to be looking forward to a Sonic game. And to be honest it might be a single moment in time where this is possible in the first place. Considering Sega (Sega Sammy) financial position I can see why they are actually putting their foot forward with this as much as possible. 

Because (and yes I'm gonna go there)... Sega died a long fucking time ago. Gotta love Sammy for not giving to shit about this franchise since the merger after SA2. Thanks to covid and some unforeseen circumstances, Sega has been put into a mode where they NEED for this game to be good. After that I'm sure we will quickly enter back to the usual... if this game is even successful in the first place.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

1 hour ago, Voyant said:

If Dio or others want to make some long winded quote tree breaking down why I'm absolutely wrong and I'm terrible person due to the fact that I treat cyberspace levels as basically special stages in this game then I'm just gonna be like w/e.

Isn't this basically just an admission that you're not actually interested in discussion? Why bother quoting somebody for that?

[DaBigJ]

So, moving away from whatever just went down above....

Do you think this game will break street date? It's happened before, and I'm kinda curious to see if it'll happen here.

[LegoFedora]

1 hour ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

So, moving away from whatever just went down above....

Do you think this game will break street date? It's happened before, and I'm kinda curious to see if it'll happen here.

Absolutely. It's tradition at this point.

[MGA_Gamer]

2 hours ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

So, moving away from whatever just went down above....

Do you think this game will break street date? It's happened before, and I'm kinda curious to see if it'll happen here.

Frankly, these days it would be more surprising if it didn’t break street date!

[Razule]

3 hours ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

So, moving away from whatever just went down above....

Do you think this game will break street date? It's happened before, and I'm kinda curious to see if it'll happen here.

We will know everything about the game 1 week before release.

[DaBigJ]

I'm glad we're able to reach an agreement, and I can't wait to see what'll come of that faithful day 

[The Deleter]

Sounds like Sonic gains the boost aura permanently once he reaches level 5 in the speed upgrades

This is both a good and bad thing imo, as I didn’t expect the upgrades to increase Sonic’s max boost speed outright, and if it’s only at level 5, it could get pretty crazy later on. Potentially even faster than the 400 rings boost.

on the other hand though, the top speed increase was what I was hoping would be the saving grace for the base walking speed itself, because as of right now, the walking speed cap is the most egregious thing about the cyberspace stages. If it ends up upgrading itself as well alongside the boost top speed, cool, but as of right now it sounds like Frontiers’ physics might be the most damning thing about how well it will play, at least in the linear stages.

also, apparently the bounce ability Jon described as being the SA2 bounce was unlocked after the cage trapping Amy is absorbed into Sonic’s arm:

This means the move is different from the basic “bounce” that uses the stomp, since that is available in the tutorial area to begin with.

[___-_]

^ Also within that same tweet, apparently leveling up Sonic's speed doesn't just affect his running speed.

It also increases recovery frames for his attacks aka allowing Sonic to act out of moves quicker. This got me curious just how DBZ these end game enemies are gonna be if he's able to cancel his combos and dodges and such pretty fast.

It also makes me wonder how fast you can connect Homing Attack chains since I'd assume that'd be an obvious attack that could use more speeding up. Maybe end game it could start zip lining akin to a light speed attack? It's interesting tho.

[ZinogreVolt]

Please don't patch M-Speed, nerf how easy it is to get Blue Boost, sure, but M-Speed is so fun to master, even if the mechanic is technically accidental.

[The Deleter]

The GHZ music clip was posted earlier, but the entire video has clean direct audio throughout, for possibly the first time since the demo footage has dropped.

I also like how the rail grinding section was shown off that everyone ignores. A bit more on the natural spectacle side of things while having more involved “level design”.

[Jango]

There seems to be no invisible walls in the cyberspace levels at all this time. Not that it matters much since the game doesn't have a life system, but at least this makes things more "open". Like, you can perform some epic saves, like I saw happening in some gameplays of Sky Sanctuary.

I'm extremelly curious to see more levels, even if they are reused tbh. Green Hill during sunset is really cool and all, but I wish there's actual "new" zones. I liked this concept more in Generations than Mania, because at least with Gens we got to see 3D versions of zones that were 2D 16-bits only, which sorta made them "new". I'm really holding my breath for Sonic Team to surprise the shit out of everybody and add a cyberspace level based on, say, Hidrocity or Stardust Speedway, Studiopolis, and not show anyone. If all we get is the Gens catalog and that bastardized City Escape/Radical Highway level, it would be seriously disappointing, be it only a 1/3 of the game or not.

[___-_]

Some 2D Green Hill stuff for yall:

 

[ZinogreVolt]

Just now, StriCNYN3 said:

Some 2D Green Hill stuff for yall:

That is beat-for-beat just Gens GHZ Act 1, lmfao

That aside, the Green Hill Zone music here sounds awesome. Wasn't expecting vocals, but it's more Rush-styled vocals than Forces-styled vocals. Wouldn't be out of place in Rush Adventure.

[Jango]

All cyberspace levels will have vocals perhaps?

[KHCast]

30 minutes ago, Jango said:

There seems to be no invisible walls in the cyberspace levels at all this time. Not that it matters much since the game doesn't have a life system, but at least this makes things more "open". Like, you can perform some epic saves, like I saw happening in some gameplays of Sky Sanctuary.

I'm extremelly curious to see more levels, even if they are reused tbh. Green Hill during sunset is really cool and all, but I wish there's actual "new" zones. I liked this concept more in Generations than Mania, because at least with Gens we got to see 3D versions of zones that were 2D 16-bits only, which sorta made them "new". I'm really holding my breath for Sonic Team to surprise the shit out of everybody and add a cyberspace level based on, say, Hidrocity or Stardust Speedway, Studiopolis, and not show anyone. If all we get is the Gens catalog and that bastardized City Escape/Radical Highway level, it would be seriously disappointing, be it only a 1/3 of the game or not.

Crisis City, but an ice level 

[ZinogreVolt]

17 minutes ago, Jango said:

All cyberspace levels will have vocals perhaps?

I believe it's been said that the city level and Chemical Plant are just straight drum 'n bass instrumentals.

[light-gaia]

I still haven't given up on cyberspace just yet. I think they add to the gameplay variety and I think reusing of old themes and layouts can work depending on how much new cyberspace content there is. If the number of cyberspace stages is high, I also think it's a smart way of increasing the content available in the game.

The daytime 3D city stage looks good with a lot of different pathways to take, this nighttime act inspired by City Space have good level design, too. It's inspired by City Escape, but the layout is original enough. It's more like reusing gimmicks, ideas and some sections, but it's still a new layout.

Open-world games usually have a lot of reused/repeated content. For example, Zelda Breath of the Wild shrines are nothing special, for the most part. They all look similar and a lot of them have similar puzzles. But some of them are more interesting. What make them work is the fact the game has hundreds of shrines. I'm only brining Zelda BotW as an example because it's clearly the main inspiration for Frontiers, and we might have some more clues about how Frontiers structure is if we look at Botw.

We are probably getting some interesting cyberspace stages, like the daytime City Stage. The same way we have interesting shrines in Zelda. But we're also getting cyberspace stages that are like the repeated/uninspired shrines.

Open world games are not only about quality, they are also about quantity. This not only applies  to Zelda, but to other open-world games as well. I think the regular challenges/less inspired challenges make the more unique ones look more special.

I would be lying if I said the cyberspace if what's bringing my attention to Frontiers. However, I still think it might be an enjoyable part of the experience.

[Diogenes]

17 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

The daytime 3D city stage looks good with a lot of different pathways to take, this nighttime act inspired by City Space have good level design, too. It's inspired by City Escape, but the layout is original enough. It's more like reusing gimmicks, ideas and some sections, but it's still a new layout.

It really isn't, they've cut a few sections and made some very small tweaks but it is almost entirely straight from the original.

[light-gaia]

4 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

It really isn't, they've cut a few sections and made some very small tweaks but it is almost entirely straight from the original.

It doesn't look like 1:! Recreation to me. A lot of sections are different, even though they have similar gimmicks