Sonic Frontiers Update 1 - Coming March 22nd (US) / 23rd (UK)

[ZinogreVolt]

14 minutes ago, DaBigJ said:

>The new DLC will also feature a Jukebox Mode, featuring 53 tracks packed with “your favorite Sonic songs”. The first 13 tracks will be available at launch, with the remaining 40 being unlocked as you gather “Sound Memories” that are scattered around Starfall Islands. We better have some Marble Zone beats going on here or there’s gonna be a sternly-worded letter heading Sega’s way.

>the remaining 40 being unlocked as you gather “Sound Memories” that are scattered around Starfall Islands.

MORE COLLECTING. PROBABLY COUNTS FOR 100% COMPLETION

Nah. Memory Tokens and other such collectibles don't contribute to completion %, I doubt this will either.

[DaBigJ]

It might as well, tbh, since the Jukebox will be objectively incomplete without the other songs. Completionist nature be damned

[Dreadknux]

1 hour ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

QOL from the official Sonic site:

Not sure what "cyber space levels can be restarted mid-level" means, because I can already do that. But hey! The other 3 are great.

IIRC, restarting a Cyberspace stage wouldn’t actually reset the timer, right? So while you could technically restart, you weren’t actually doing much to help with your S Rank. Maybe this fixes that.

[Sonicka]

Looks like the update is Wednesday 22nd US Pacific time - which is the midnight clock over to Thursday here in the UK, so that explains the time differential on across the media. I’ll update my OP. 

6 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Okay, tone down the drama routine. They're not going to retroactively take away 100% completion from players who don't have the songs.

It's essentially another thing to collect in the open-zone, which makes sense given how most players enjoyed the open-zobe gameplay.

 

Agreed, I also don’t want these things to be just handed to me - giving us a platter of 13 tracks with the ability to re-traverse Starfall adds reason to return and explore.

Hopefully they’ll have a lot of them hidden about Rhea if we are lucky. 

 

[DaBigJ]

I wanna bring up something I found interesting in this article

https://www.destructoid.com/sonic-frontiers-dlc-sights-sounds-and-speed-march-22/

Quote

Later releases are set to include additional features and challenges, including an “Open Zone Challenge” and additional playable characters.

I wonder if these are in the same update that'll come out after the first one or separate ones

[LegoFedora]

4 minutes ago, Dreadknux said:

IIRC, restarting a Cyberspace stage wouldn’t actually reset the timer, right? So while you could technically restart, you weren’t actually doing much to help with your S Rank. Maybe this fixes that.

I think they mean being able to restart a cyberstage from the last checkpoint you hit. Maybe if you missed a red ring/got stuck somehow I guess?

[Sega DogTagz]

3 minutes ago, DaBigJ said:

I wonder if these are in the same update that'll come out after the first one or separate ones

 

The roadmap uses that exact terminology to describe content in update 2 (open zone challenges) and update 3 (additional characters).

What is there to wonder about?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

24 minutes ago, DaBigJ said:

It might as well, tbh, since the Jukebox will be objectively incomplete without the other songs. Completionist nature be damned

That's far from a good reason to raise a massive big-lettered stink over personal preference then.

[ZinogreVolt]

I can't speak for everyone, but personally I like it when my collect-a-thon slanted platforming game has new and meaningful things for me to collect.

[Dreadknux]

I mean, I did enjoy pottering around the Starfall Islands the first time around but there’s really no incentive to explore it once you’ve beaten the game (unless you wanna be anal over those tokens, but after a point they stop contributing to your % score).

So anything that gives me an excuse to go exploring the islands again is OK in my book. Sonic Team spent a lot of time developing those open zones. I’m okay with them making some more use of them!

[Zaysho]

4 hours ago, ZinogreVolt said:

- Confirmed songs so far:

"I'm Here", "Live & Learn", "Open Your Heart", "Reach for the Stars (Re-Colors)", "Kingdom Valley", "Red Mountain", "Mystic Ruin", "Sky Sanctuary", "It Doesn't Matter", "Angel Island", "Mushroom Hill", "Stardust Speedway (US Ver.)", "Palmtree Panic", "Emerald Coast - Act 1", "Seaside Hill", "Wave Ocean", "Deep Woods", "Emerald Coast - Act 2 (Remix)"

It's pretty cool they're adding a whole slate of legacy music. I initially got excited because I mixed up Emerald Coast (Sonic Adventure) with Emerald Hill (Sonic 2) and thought Sega went out of their way to get Nakamura to remix some songs for this before I realized lol

Still though, it's a nice touch. When I tried the Switch demo or listened to the soundtrack on its own or just watched gameplay, I felt the main BGM was just a little too moody and atmospheric for Sonic outside of the boss music or cyber levels.

[DaddlerTheDalek]

5 hours ago, ZinogreVolt said:

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/03/20/sonic-frontiers-update-brings-new-challenge-mode-photo-mode-and-jukebox-tracks-march-22/

Some more details:

- Songs can be changed at any time by holding right on the D-Pad, this can also be disabled in the Options menu

- There are 53 songs total, 13 of which are unlocked by default

- Confirmed songs so far:

"I'm Here", "Live & Learn", "Open Your Heart", "Reach for the Stars (Re-Colors)", "Kingdom Valley", "Red Mountain", "Mystic Ruin", "Sky Sanctuary", "It Doesn't Matter", "Angel Island", "Mushroom Hill", "Stardust Speedway (US Ver.)", "Palmtree Panic", "Emerald Coast - Act 1", "Seaside Hill", "Wave Ocean", "Deep Woods", "Emerald Coast - Act 2 (Remix)"

Oooh, I'm going to love the Jukebox!

[Zadent]

8 hours ago, Dreadknux said:

That news article also says the DLC will drop on March 22nd, which is a day before the newsletter states. Weird.

I’m late, so idk if this was addressed yet, My email from the Sonic newsletter states the 22nd, so could it be a regional difference?

Edit: i just noticed that was in the title. Didn’t see it on the prior page before I entered. Clearly, my brain is out of it today (facepalm)

[DaBigJ]

The article mentions the JukeBox can be played "anywhere", and I assume that includes Cyberspace.

This won't make the stages better, but at least I can listen to music that's not....unfitting?

[JezMM]

Definitely cool that there's a variety on offer.  Looking at that initial starting list, it seems clear that they've thought about songs to bring back that people love but also will suit the locales of this game.

6 hours ago, Jango said:

That's neato. I've seen some screenshots, is it just me, or Sonic's model looks better?

It's possible that in photo mode, the models get a little beefed up.  This is how it works in a lot of games, which is why photo modes tend to have choppy framerates compared to the main game (Smash Bros and Horizon both have silky consistent framerates during gameplay, but chug like hell when moving the camera while paused/in photo mode - which makes sense, a smooth framerate is less important than visual fidelity there).

5 hours ago, DaBigJ said:

>the remaining 40 being unlocked as you gather “Sound Memories” that are scattered around Starfall Islands.

MORE COLLECTING. PROBABLY COUNTS FOR 100% COMPLETION

If you made it through 100% completing the base game, I think you'll manage here.  There's like 200 things to collect on each island in the base game that are tracked on the map.  This is 40 more things.  That's 8 per island (or 10 if they skip Rhea).  Probably an hour's gameplay tops if you're loading up a save from the end of the story.

[juiceDpunk983]

5 hours ago, DaBigJ said:

MORE COLLECTING. PROBABLY COUNTS FOR 100% COMPLETION

If my Platinum disappears, I will become Dark Gaia!

[ZinogreVolt]

https://www.famitsu.com/news/202303/21296719.html

The Famitsu article on Frontiers lists a few extra things coming in the update that's so far not mentioned elsewhere.

An "Extreme" difficulty option and "Cyber Space Power Boost".

Extreme Difficulty could potentially reimplement (spoilers for unused Frontiers content): 

Spoiler

the unused golden variations of several enemy types

Cyber Space Power Boost seems self-explanatory, but I hope they heavily tighten up the S-Rank times on that mode too.

[DaBigJ]

Is "extreme" for the boss rush or regular gameplay

[ZinogreVolt]

Nothing indicates its only for the battle rush mode, so I would assume it's something for normal gameplay.

[DaBigJ]

I gotta feeling there's content locked behind extreme, meaning I might have to replay to experience it if I want to

[The Deleter]

4 hours ago, ZinogreVolt said:

https://www.famitsu.com/news/202303/21296719.html

The Famitsu article on Frontiers lists a few extra things coming in the update that's so far not mentioned elsewhere.

An "Extreme" difficulty option and "Cyber Space Power Boost".

Extreme Difficulty could potentially reimplement (spoilers for unused Frontiers content): 

  Hide contents

the unused golden variations of several enemy types

Cyber Space Power Boost seems self-explanatory, but I hope they heavily tighten up the S-Rank times on that mode too.

The fact that both of those seem to relate to the two categories of challenges make it seem like they'd be the rewards for completing them tbh. I know I should just be happy to have the former considering how I was holding out hope for a hard mode difficulty, but maybe it will be a Kirby-esque "true arena" mode for both, where the new unlocks are used for even harder S ranks? That'd be really cool as a challenge mode on its own tbh

[DaBigJ]

40 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

The fact that both of those seem to relate to the two categories of challenges make it seem like they'd be the rewards for completing them tbh. I know I should just be happy to have the former considering how I was holding out hope for a hard mode difficulty, but maybe it will be a Kirby-esque "true arena" mode for both, where the new unlocks are used for even harder S ranks? That'd be really cool as a challenge mode on its own tbh

There's probably an award for beating extreme mode tbh, at least I'd assume there would be

[Shiny Gems]

Apparently, there is a Famitsu live event about the update on the 24th.

[DarkRula]

I'll likely boot this up again to mess around with that photo mode and hunt those songs down. Will be nice to listen to some while cruising round the islands.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Would love it if the Symphony version of Live and Learn is included.