Sonic Frontiers Story Dicussion (Full Spoilers)

[Darkvizardberrytan]

6 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Shadow's problems didn't start until after he was brought back. 

And even then, brining him back wasn't the issue. It's that what they did with him afterwards that was problem. 

Not that Sage will fall into the same pitfalls given their characters are different, but I'm not really confident she'll be treated any better. At best, she'll probably just play a secondary role with Eggman's group so she doesn't overstay her welcome, but can still show up. 

Y'all love it when characters just show up regardless of the context or role they play, so just appearing will be enough to satisfy some of you. 

True we are easy to please. Though this is t he first time we have had a decent good story in god knows when. The only part that threw me for a loop but enjoyed hearing them talk was The End. literally what was it. But power level wise its almost on par with Solaris almost. As it said. They had to build a entire different reality to keep it sealed.

[Austroid]

 

Wall of text incoming:

My main beef with Eggman creating/viewing Sage as his daughter, is that its supposed to be in the main canon of the series. If it took place in the shows or comics like with Mecha "M" Robotnik in Archie, (who was honestly pretty cool) or the puppet girl in IDW, then I'd be okay with it because its more of an AU-type thing. It just feels so out of left field to have the big bad of the franchise get all soft and want a family when Forces story happened not long ago, and the rest of the series before that leaves no evidence to the contrary. Yes, he looked up to his grandfather and such; but he still ultimately wants to enslave/conquer the world. Putting in "oh, and he also has a daughter whom he loves very much" just doesn't feel right, and sounds more fan-fictiony than anything.

Also regarding Eggman's overall tone in the game: I've seen people say he's sounds more like a scientist and such with the Egg Memos. Honestly he comes across more tired than anything; which made me kinda sad. Not sure if that was due to Mike Pollock's direction or just how he sounds lately. That plus the addition of Sage almost feels like they want to slowly move Eggman away from the spotlight as the main villain in the future. (I know it'd never happen, but that's kinda where my mind wandered.)

 

 

[JezMM]

I wanted to talk about this earlier but wanted to give it it's own post so the above post is a perfect segue actually.

While TSR (and possibly the IDW comics now, we'll see?) canonically coming inbetween this and Forces kinda muddles it up, I kind of liked the more tired sounding voice direction as if like, after Eggman came SO CLOSE to actual domination in Forces, his defeat there was actually quite a setback for him mentally and left him sort of reconsidering things.  Then he learns about the Ancients and as usual, he can't help himself and he's right back in the saddle.

But perhaps those thoughts are still sort of lingering around?  The idea of thoughts of a more normal life?  He doesn't have a heart of stone - much as he gripes about them, Orbot and Cubot were programmed chock-full of personality - or at least he attempted to give them a personality and some small miscalculation manifested in them turning out to be the way they are.

Eggman programmed Sage to be the way she is to some degree or another.  He clearly programmed her to think outside the box and consider emotional information if it's tactically advantageous (or at least programmed her with the capability to learn such a thing)*, even if in reality he verbally forbids her from considering Sonic as anything other than an enemy.

And... okay strap in because we're going into full fanon now but I can't stop thinking about this!  Sage can clearly appear as a physical construct of some kind in the physical world, but at the start of the game she's just an AI program stored in a device.  We don't see her in physical form until after Eggman has been dragged into cyberspace - and she's clearly adopted some cyberspacey "stuff" to her in the process.  Cyberspace is capable of reading and generating "content" from the feelings, memories, wishes (and sadly anxieties for Amy/Knuckles/Tails) of those who interact with it.  Sage only gains her physical appearance after Eggman enters cyberspace, and it takes the matter of days or weeks of them spending time together to imprint on one another as Father and Daughter.

Deep down... does Eggman wish for a daughter?  For family?  Sage considering Orbot and Cubot her siblings didn't come out of nowhere, Eggman made her.  And Eggman doesn't completely disagree even if he's a little awkward about the idea, but as said, in person he's probably stifling these true feelings that Cyberspace tapped into when it turned Sage into a daughter for him.

 

May well be reading too much into things and naturally considering any of this as headcanon may only serve to make the slightly choppy storytelling in the game more frustrating for not dwelling on more scenes that could prove this idea right/wrong, but... I dunno, it's something that I really really vibe with for complicating Eggman a bit more if we're going to start getting games that stop treating the cast as one-note archetypes.

 

* on second thought, this could be the ancient's more emotion-based technology corrupting her, but I think the main point of the post still stands, since becoming his daughter wouldn't have happened without Eggman's thoughts getting involved (in this fan theory I mean).

[Stasis]

The Death Egg should have been used to take on The End. 

[Kuzu]

The idea of humanizing Eggman into a more dynamic character by way of Sage is fine in theory.

But I'm not really fond of the way it was done here because it simply doesn't jive with how the man has been portrayed for the past 30 years. Not that I don't feel like Eggman has the capacity to love and care, but he's always struck me as someone who put his own interests above anyone else; even his teamups with Sonic to save the planet are mostly for pragmatic reasons than genuine altruism on his part.

If they wanna move Eggman away from his villainous role to focus more on his humane side fine, but I feel like that's doing him a huge disservice as Sonic's villainous foil.

 

One of the main reasons other Sonic villains suck is because none of them are effective foils to Sonic at all, so the whole thing just falls flat. If they really wanna move Eggman away from the primary Big Bad then they're going to have to put in more work with villains than the fucking Deadly Six.

[Whatever the WhoCares]

I never got the sense that Eggman was losing motivation for world conquest. I always figured he had a reason to want to take over the world besides just being power hungry- that he has some sort of agenda that he’s fighting for. He is not the bad guy in his mind, and it makes sense that he would want a family to share his utopia with. He’s hurt by the neglect he perceived in favor of Maria, and that has to be weighing on him as well. 
 

Not to mention that throughout the cutscenes and egg memos, his ego and pettiness is on full display all the way through. 

[Dr. Mechano]

35 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

One of the main reasons other Sonic villains suck is because none of them are effective foils to Sonic at all, so the whole thing just falls flat. If they really wanna move Eggman away from the primary Big Bad then they're going to have to put in more work with villains than the fucking Deadly Six.

I don't think they have to move him away from being the primary big bad, just because they're humanizing him a little more.

Bowser's a dad and he's still the uncontested main villain of the Mario series. Dr. Wily has outright said in Super Adventure Rockman that he loves his robots as opposed to viewing them as expendable minions, as well as willingly giving the cure for Roboenza as a gesture of gratitude for Mega Man saving his life in MM10, and he's no less Mega Man's archenemy for it.

I think Eggman can love his daughter, and indeed even have other good qualities on top of that, and still be the same tenacious foe to Sonic he's always been. The addition of more solidly-defined good points doesn't have to negate Eggman's bad points, and I really doubt a character like Eggman would ever truly give up on world domination.

[MetalSkulkBane]

18 hours ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

Artificial Chaos

OH GOD

I never though about this before, but aren't Artificial Chaos messed up?

Look at it from Ancients point of view. It's normal body with brain removed and machine stuck instead.

Best case scenario: Kinda Creepy Androids.
Worst: Zombies created by Lobotomy and Mad Science

[Kuzu]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I don't think they have to move him away from being the primary big bad, just because they're humanizing him a little more.

Bowser's a dad and he's still the uncontested main villain of the Mario series. Dr. Wily has outright said in Super Adventure Rockman that he loves his robots as opposed to viewing them as expendable minions, as well as willingly giving the cure for Roboenza as a gesture of gratitude for Mega Man saving his life in MM10, and he's no less Mega Man's archenemy for it.

I think Eggman can love his daughter, and indeed even have other good qualities on top of that, and still be the same tenacious foe to Sonic he's always been. The addition of more solidly-defined good points doesn't have to negate Eggman's bad points, and I really doubt a character like Eggman would ever fully give up on world domination entirely.

Neither Mario or Mega Man are as story intensive as Sonic usually tends to be.

Why do you think the games that are more story focused like the Mario RPG's and the X/Zero franchise focus on much more vile villains while Bowser and Wily are pushed to the side?

[StaticMania]

6 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Look at it from Ancients point of view.

Why?

They're not real versions of the thing...the technology would serve as a way to keep the water in some kind of condensed shape based on Chaos rather than just being the water creature with cybernetics.

[Dr. Mechano]

3 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Neither Mario or Mega Man are as story intensive as Sonic usually tends to be.

Why do you think the games that are more story focused like the Mario RPG's and the X/Zero franchise focus on much more vile villains while Bowser and Wily are pushed to the side?

And yet, several of the Mario RPGs do still feature Bowser as the main villain, like the first Paper Mario, or

Spoiler

Mario and Luigi: Dream Team, where Bowser usurps newer, darker villain Antasma instead of the expected other way around.

I get what you're saying. A lot of the time, Bowser does team up with Mario or get shooed aside in these games, but it's not a foregone conclusion. 

It's similar to how Forces was (intended to be) a tonally more "serious" Sonic game than the bulk of the 2010s and Eggman was still the main villain of that. It can be done.

Mind you, I think Sonic's weakness in this comparison is that it doesn't make games nearly as often as Mario does. So it's not as easy to go, "Yeah, Eggman sat this one out but that's fine, he'll be the big bad of this other game that's literally coming out this exact same year." Sonic used to basically be this way in the 2000s, when we were regularly getting handheld titles along with the big 3D console games (which seemed to informally be the games Eggman was mostly the main antagonist in), but that's largely a thing of the past now. 

I do feel like regularly getting smaller 2D games could be a great way to not only keep up Eggman's big bad cred (even if the 3D games want to explore other villains), but also allow for other heroes to be playable besides Sonic, which the 3D games just aren't doing.

[Diogenes]

3 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Why do you think the games that are more story focused like the Mario RPG's and the X/Zero franchise focus on much more vile villains while Bowser and Wily are pushed to the side?

A misguided attempt to seem more serious and mature?

Surely games that are more story focused don't require less morally complex villains because of it, right?

[Indigo Rush]

Affable or otherwise "likable" villains are probably very difficult to write and keep consistent since you need to make sure that they're never too evil or too heroic. For a series like Sonic which is never really meant to end, keeping that balance is important. Sonic games tend to do a fair job of this, but the series will always have to contend with the fact that Eggman attempted to nuke a city and successfully blew up a chunk of the moon, broke the planet apart (twice), among many other atrocities that would normally constitute life imprisonment, if not the death penalty. 

Now ... it's a cartoony anime franchise for kids and teens. They're not going to stake their entire story tone on discussing this stuff. The intense world-ending stuff is usually reigned in with the comedy or light-heartedness of it all, but you're not going to fully shake the malicious stuff Eggman's done.

I say all that to preface that giving Eggman a daughter, even an AI one, is going to confuse the heck out of a lot of people. I think the concept is totally fine, mind. Eggman having a family of robots and AI and all is very in-character for him and may help to keep a leash on how sinister Eggman can be in-universe. Just expect a lot of pushback as fans who came on with SatAM or new fans who are expecting a heartless baddie as the main antagonist, I guess.

 

 

[Dr. Mechano]

3 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

Just expect a lot of pushback as fans who came on with SatAM or new fans who are expecting a heartless baddie as the main antagonist, I guess.

It's anecdotal, but the absolute loads of fanart in just a couple of weeks, and the overwhelmingly positive comments on the game's cutscene videos online, indicate to me that Eggdad was pretty well-received.

Yeah, of course there are fans who don't like it, and that's fine and valid. But the general vibe I'm getting is that both Sage herself and Eggman's fatherly love for her are being received mostly positively. 

[Wraith]

29 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I don't think they have to move him away from being the primary big bad, just because they're humanizing him a little more.

Bowser's a dad and he's still the uncontested main villain of the Mario series. Dr. Wily has outright said in Super Adventure Rockman that he loves his robots as opposed to viewing them as expendable minions, as well as willingly giving the cure for Roboenza as a gesture of gratitude for Mega Man saving his life in MM10, and he's no less Mega Man's archenemy for it.

I think Eggman can love his daughter, and indeed even have other good qualities on top of that, and still be the same tenacious foe to Sonic he's always been. The addition of more solidly-defined good points doesn't have to negate Eggman's bad points, and I really doubt a character like Eggman would ever truly give up on world domination.

Eggman has always been a step above those characters in terms of maliciousness. He's threatened to nuke cities and held girls who are Sage's age hostage to further his goals. Even in this very game he admits in the Egg logs that his main takeaway from Maria's unique illness and death was that he ended up getting less attention. He's pretty consistently portrayed as self centered, only making alliances with others when his own neck is on the line. 

It's why this whole subplot is a little hard for me to buy. A tool that gains agency seems like too much of a hassle for Robotnik to want to deal with. He flat out rejected the idea of it in previous titles with robots unable to follow orders met with harsh punishments or sealed away. Is Sage viewed differently just because she's more humanoid? If so, that seems a bit strange since he didn't seem to care for bending organic life against his will in previous titles. He created a mind control beam in colors and tried to reign the deadly six in by force before trying to create any kind of alliance. He generally doesn't trust others with agency. Why is this time any different?

[Diogenes]

Even SatAM Robotnik had Cluck.

[Dr. Mechano]

8 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Why is this time any different?

Every other time one of his machines grew beyond their programming (whether it was Gamma being affected by their Flicky, or Metal Sonic after developing his Neo Metal abilities, etc.), they betrayed him.

Cyberspace caused Sage to advance and change in unexpected ways as well, but she remained adamantly loyal to Eggman. He also grew fond of her over time due to the unique personality she developed - she told him silly jokes about Sonic, put his well-being as a top priority (and was even willing to disobey Eggman for his own good by putting him in Cyberspace in the first place), and came across to Eggman as - in his own words - "adorable and personable." 

He just grew to like Sage. That's what's different. He spent some time getting to know her as a person, and that was enough. I can buy that much.

[Indigo Rush]

Thinking about it, my only hang-up with Sage might be a bit shallow, but I don't visually see her connection with Eggman making much sense based off of her design. The whole Omelette/Eggatha thing is a meme and all, but that visual likeness does a whole lot of heavy lifting.

Like.... look. Sage looks like a cross between Infinite and 2B. It's a neat design, but doesn't feel quite Eggmanish enough. I think if they can tweak it a bit for a more permanent "post-cybercorruption" model in the future, I may drop my only complaint with her as Eggman's daughter moving forward.

[Kuzu]

22 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

And yet, several of the Mario RPGs do still feature Bowser as the main villain, like the first Paper Mario, or

  Reveal hidden contents

Mario and Luigi: Dream Team, where Bowser usurps newer, darker villain Antasma instead of the expected other way around.

I get what you're saying. A lot of the time, Bowser does team up with Mario or get shooed aside in these games, but it's not a foregone conclusion. 

It's similar to how Forces was (intended to be) a tonally more "serious" Sonic game than the bulk of the 2010s and Eggman was still the main villain of that. It can be done.

Mind you, I think Sonic's weakness in this comparison is that it doesn't make games nearly as often as Mario does. So it's not as easy to go, "Yeah, Eggman sat this one out but that's fine, he'll be the big bad of this other game that's literally coming out this exact same year." Sonic used to basically be this way in the 2000s, when we were regularly getting handheld titles along with the big 3D console games (which seemed to informally be the games Eggman was mostly the main antagonist in), but that's largely a thing of the past now. 

I do feel like regularly getting smaller 2D games could be a great way to not only keep up Eggman's big bad cred (even if the 3D games want to explore other villains), but also allow for other heroes to be playable besides Sonic, which the 3D games just aren't doing.

The most popular Paper Mario games are the ones when Bowser isn't the main villain at all iirc and people are kind of split over his Dream Team portrayal too. So its not concrete either.

And Forces sucks, I'm not counting that for anything.

 

The real solution is to stick with one interpretation; Bowser tends to be consistent across his portrayals but that's due to the lax narrative of Mario games

If Sonic is going to stick to having more complex narratives then it needs to commit to either sympathetic Daddy Eggman or Cartoon over the top Eggman, as opposed to trying to do both and just confusing people.

 

19 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

A misguided attempt to seem more serious and mature?

Surely games that are more story focused don't require less morally complex villains because of it, right?

Depends on the story you're trying to tell.

But there's a reason stories with more morally complex villains tend to either die or just become all and out heroes at some point.

Like @Indigo Rushsaid, the series has to contend with the fact its trying to humanize a character while still keeping their over the top villainous antics in tact.

[Speedi]

1 minute ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Every other time one of his machines grew beyond their programming (whether it was Gamma being affected by their Flicky, or Metal Sonic betraying him after developing his Neo Metal abilities, etc.), they betrayed him.

Cyberspace caused Sage to change in unexpected ways as well, but she remained adamantly loyal to Eggman. He also grew fond of her over time due to the unique personality she developed - she told him silly jokes about Sonic, put his well-being as a top priority (and was even willing to disobey Eggman for his own good by putting him in Cyberspace in the first place), and came across to Eggman as - in his own words - "adorable and personable." 

He just grew to like Sage. That's what's different. He spent some time getting to know her as a person, and that was enough. I can buy that much.

I don't buy any of this being enough for Eggman to see Sage as his child, though. A creation he likes and is proud of? Sure, he spoke pretty highly of Gamma, too so I can accept it here. But they take his fondness for Sage way too far. And I don't see the logical development from "Sage is one of my favorite creations." to "Sage is literally my daughter." happening just because she has quirks he finds endearing and she protects him.

Also, why would Sage disobeying Eggman something he would be happy about? This is the guy who reprogrammed Metal Sonic to be completely loyal to him after what happened in Heroes and toss Emerl into the sea just for not obeying his commands. Eggman shouldn't tolerate being told what to do or being denied requests by his own creations. 

[Dr. Mechano]

3 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

If Sonic is going to stick to having more complex narratives then it needs to commit to either sympathetic Daddy Eggman or Cartoon over the top Eggman, as opposed to trying to do both and just confusing people.

Hard disagree. In fact, I think they can combine the two and make Eggman a cartoonishly over-the-top doting father who's also a ruthless villain.

Time will tell what balance they strike with him, but I'm not too worried about audiences being confused by character nuance. I've seen Eggman as (while still fundamentally bad) somewhat morally complex ever since SA2, and I think Frontiers is just making those aspects that I think were always there more prominent and obvious. His more uproarious, theatrical, villainous side will still be there in full force I'm sure - and I don't think it will take too much to get players used to this side of Eggman as long as it doesn't disrupt his villainy. I have confidence that it will not.

2 minutes ago, Speedi said:

Also, why would Sage disobeying Eggman something he would be happy about? This is the guy who reprogrammed Metal Sonic to be completely loyal to him after what happened in Heroes and toss Emerl into the sea just for not obeying his commands. Eggman shouldn't tolerate being told what to do or being denied requests by his own creations. 

Because it was done in the name of protecting him, rather than in the name of undermining his operations (Gamma), usurping him (Metal Sonic), or killing him (Omega).

Sage was the first of his creations to go against his will for his own good. I think that's a pretty important distinction.

[Kuzu]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Hard disagree. In fact, I think they can combine the two and make Eggman a cartoonishly over-the-top doting father who's also a ruthless villain.

Time will tell what balance they strike with him, but I'm not too worried about audiences being confused by character nuance. I've seen Eggman as (while still fundamentally bad) somewhat morally complex ever since SA2, and I think Frontiers is just making those aspects that I think were always there more prominent and obvious. His more uproarious, theatrical, villainous side will still be there in full force I'm sure - and I don't think it will take too much to get players used to this side of Eggman as long as it doesn't disrupt his villainy. I have confidence that it will not.

 

Seeing how you're obviously biased in favor of anything that caters to your interpretation of Eggman, I don't really have much else to add. You seem content that they're sanding off his edges because it makes him more likable to you, which is fine.

Personally I feel like it's going to cause even more division in this series but that's really nothing new at this point I guess.

[Diogenes]

11 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Depends on the story you're trying to tell.

But there's a reason stories with more morally complex villains tend to either die or just become all and out heroes at some point.

Like @Indigo Rushsaid, the series has to contend with the fact its trying to humanize a character while still keeping their over the top villainous antics in tact.

I don't think "I care about me and mine, not you and yours" is that hard a dynamic to keep up.

Did we have all this hand wringing when Eggman was acting like a proud papa to Metal Sonic in IDW, that scene where he got his memories back? I felt like we pretty much all liked that scene.

[Kuzu]

19 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I don't think "I care about me and mine, not you and yours" is that hard a dynamic to keep up.

Did we have all this hand wringing when Eggman was acting like a proud papa to Metal Sonic in IDW, that scene where he got his memories back? I felt like we pretty much all liked that scene.

That's not the dynamic I feel like people are seeing though with Eggman and Sage. Fans are using Sage to show that Eggman "has good inside of him" and how he's not as evil as he seems, as opposed to emphasizing his evil nature.

The thing with Metal Sonic is weird because it's literally canon that Eggman forced obedience into him, which is something the games confirmed. At the very least, you can interpret it as Eggman stroking his own ego and admiring his work with Metal Sonic. 

That's not the dynamic they established with Sage though; you are 100% meant to see Eggman in a more positive light due to him being a good father to Sage and they beat you over the head with that fact all through Frontiers. 

So the whole thing is muddled; Eggman treats his creations like shit if they aren't useful and only cares about them if they perform well...except this new AI he created because it looks like a cute Anime girl that started calling him daddy...

wait nevermind, maybe it is realistic after all. 

[JezMM]

There are definitely some challenges to wrinkle out if they keep Sage around but it all seems pretty possible to me.

I think if she becomes a status quo character, they're unlikely to focus on their father/daughter relationship as an emotional crux as much as this game did.  To a casual player, she'll just be another Eggman minion who he calls by name and she calls "Father".  Considering her unusual speech style already, it won't feel that out-of-place as a quirk.

 

Regarding "why does Eggman accept her insubordination", it'd be because she never goes against his commands.  Every time he asks to be removed from cyber space, she clarifies there is no safe way to do so.  Clearly she has a primary directive programmed by him to protect his wellbeing.  He doesn't understand what she's REALLY saying, but he accepts the condition - he never gets so frustrated that he demands she use an unsafe or risky removal.

And when they do finally team up with Sonic?  She never does it against his will, she verbally convinces him it is the best option, and he trusts her, since everything she's done up until now has proven that her aforementioned primary directive is running full steam.

 

 

The only thorn with Sage in the future that, to be honest, I'd LOVE to see address and a cause of conflict, is the idea that he begins to accidentally humanise her as his daughter so much that he actually grows frustrated that all of her desires stem from a desire to protect him, and he begins to question whether he should be allowing her more independence.  Naturally though that takes us back to the question of how much we're willing to alienate more casual players with continuity for the Eggfamily.

To be honest?  Horizon Forbidden West has a recap option on the title screen that plays a video that spoils the entirety of the previous game.  I imagine if people are only playing Sonic casually, such an option would feel even less egregious.  Let's just go for it if it leads to a better, more connected story.