Iizuka Reveals Hopes of Using Sonic Frontiers Work Towards Future Sonic Adventure Sequel

20 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

Sonic Heroes was meant to be a different series, he said that in the interviews at that time. He said Sonic Heroes wasn't supposed to replace Sonic Adventure series and that he still wanted to continue the Adventure games as a separated series. Shadow the Hedgehog was also meant to be a different series focused on a different audience. The games are set in the same universe and their stories belong to the same canon, but neither Sonic Heroes nor Shadow the Hedgehog was meant to be Sonic Adventure 3.

Both were meant to be called Sonic Adventure 3, Badnik Mechanic's post after mine sums it up.

14 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Hmm. Given that whatever you're pulling from was apparently 10 years ago, I have my doubts.

And even if it did occur, that was 10 years ago, and under different context.

It's not good enough grounds for discouraging people from having faith in Iizuka. 

Actually it was from around Forces was coming out. Basically explaining why am SA3 was unlikely http://sonicdistrict.com/tssz/Iizuka_If_We_Get_Gameplay_To_Evolve_To_A_Place_Where_SA3_Makes_Sense,_Then_You_Might_See_Adventure_3&8221;.html

4 minutes ago, jungle_penguins said:

Both were meant to be called Sonic Adventure 3, Badnik Mechanic's post after mine sums it up.

Nope, Sega decided to make Sonic Heroes because they weren't confident enough that Sonic Adventure 3 would have mainstream appeal because most Playstation and Xbox players hadn't played Sonic Adventure 1&2. They decided to make a totally new game, and they wanted this game to look more similar to the genesis games. Sonic Heroes was never meant to be Sonic Adventure 3.

Shadow the Hedgehog was never meant to be Sonic Adventure 3 either.

3 minutes ago, Dejimon11 said:

Actually it was from around Forces was coming out. Basically explaining why am SA3 was unlikely http://sonicdistrict.com/tssz/Iizuka_If_We_Get_Gameplay_To_Evolve_To_A_Place_Where_SA3_Makes_Sense,_Then_You_Might_See_Adventure_3&8221;.html

Still before Sonic Forces failed pretty badly.

Lol

I'd love to see one of the interviews actually ask Iizuka to tell us exactly what he thinks what a Sonic Adventure title would entail as opposed to other Sonic games. Something tells me he'll give a whole different answer then Sonic Adventure fans would.


Actually, I don't think we'll get any cohesive response from him at all.
Everytime I read him in interviews he mostly talks in vague broad statements that mean nothing, like " 3d Action game".

Allow me to make a point to... anyone who actually reads my posts these days.

Take any game from the past 20 years. Give it the title Sonic Adventure 3.

Does it really make any difference/and/or make you happy it's now called that?

Maybe Unleashed works but... still... doesn't feel right somehow.

It's not something I think will happen. But I can believe it happening easier than I could after Unleashed, Gens, or Forces. 

That Hub/Level seperation was a big part of the original Adventure, and if an SA3 builds off this game, but balances the HUB as a playground for multple playstyles and scaled so that it doesn't overshadow the levels themselves, there is something there.

But of course, the physics are the big elephant in the room.

9 minutes ago, Dejimon11 said:

Actually it was from around Forces was coming out. Basically explaining why am SA3 was unlikely http://sonicdistrict.com/tssz/Iizuka_If_We_Get_Gameplay_To_Evolve_To_A_Place_Where_SA3_Makes_Sense,_Then_You_Might_See_Adventure_3&8221;.html

Holy shit I didn't hallucinate.

Anyways I think I'm just gonna cut back on being a negative nancy, I don't want to keep indirectly stomping on other's hype. At the very least I'll try to be more logical and not use outdated ibfo. 

3 minutes ago, Badnik Mechanic said:

Allow me to make a point to... anyone who actually reads my posts these days.

Take any game from the past 20 years. Give it the title Sonic Adventure 3.

Does it really make any difference/and/or make you happy it's now called that?

Maybe Unleashed works but... still... doesn't feel right somehow.

Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow of a Hedgehog would've been a glorious title and they should've kept that, but also what a terrible title. 

1 minute ago, jungle_penguins said:

Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow of a Hedgehog would've been a glorious title and they should've kept that, but also what a terrible title. 

Shadow of a Hedgehog - A Sonic Adventure Story

After seeing Sonic Team fail multiple times to even recreate the Classic games, I have no faith in them at all tackling the Sonic adventure games.
Especially since the story in Forces was meant to evoke the style of the Adventure game stories and it had the same brainless blunt aproach as Sonic 4 did for recreating Classic Sonic's gameplay style.
War! And Sonic is tortured! And cool evil anthro does edgy things! Bam, done, just like the Adventure titles!
Yeah, no thanks.
It'll be a parody of what people who hate the Sonic Adventure games would describe those games to be like.
And that's just the story, the easy part.

Everything I love in Sonic Adventure is what modern Sonic Team threw in the trash. No way they'll suddenly return mechanics and gameplay philosophies they' ve been waging war against for decades now. Let alone have any understanding or passion for.

2 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

After seeing Sonic Team fail multiple times to even recreate the Classic games, I have no faith in them at all tackling the Sonic adventure games.
Especially since the story in Forces was meant to evoke the style of the Adventure game stories and it had the same brainless blunt aproach as Sonic 4 did for recreating Classic Sonic's gameplay style.
War! And Sonic is tortured! And cool evil anthro does edgy things! Bam, done, just like the Adventure titles!
Yeah, no thanks.
It'll be a parody of what people who hate the Sonic Adventure games would describe those games to be like.
And that's just the story, the easy part.

Everything I love in Sonic Adventure is what modern Sonic Team threw in the trash. No way they'll suddenly return mechanics and gameplay philosophies they' ve been waging war against for decades now. Let alone have any understanding or passion for.

I don't think Ian Flynn wouldn't be capable of writing an Adventure's style story. He is probably more capable than the Adventure writers.

WHAT

WHAT

W H A T

I’M NOT SHITTING MY PANTS YOU’RE SHITTING MY PANTS

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

okay got that out of my system.

Sonic Adventure 3 is a tremendous idea that I don’t know that this version of the team is ready for. A lot of the fun with Sonic in those games depended on freely exploring a linearish level with a wide physics toolbox, something almost completely antithetical to what we’ve seen of Frontier. The whole personality of the game is different, from the gameplay priorities to choice of music. What they have built with Frontier would better serve them making a good version of Sonic 06 more than it would trying to deliver something like A Ghost Pumpkin’s Soup. We would definitely have to see.

On a side note, this would basically mean Ian is writing the next Sonic Adventure game, which is wild.

1 hour ago, Zoomzeta said:

 

I supposed it was the higher focus on plot from different character perspectives, the setting being more rooted in the real world, upgrades, and of course the chao garden. But you're right that some of those things were a focus of other titles after as well.

In other words, barring the Chao Garden, Sonic 06

49 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

There already are people going on about him supposedly lying....when he really gas no precedent to either. 

I don't think Takashi Iizuka lies. I think Sega changes their mind all the time, so it feels like he lies. It's not because he said in 2017 that Sonic Adventure was not the future of the franchise that he was lying, or that he is lying now.

It's not because he said positive things about Sonic Forces that he was lying, either. Not only that, but it's not like he can see the future and predict Sonic Forces' reception.

It's true that Flynn will do a great job writing, he got the speech paterns and attitude of the cast down pretty well (Minus Shadow)
Problem is, how much control does he really have?
And never mind just the writng quality, to me that's just a small part of the issue.

To me, what makes me love the Sonic ADventure cutscenes and story isn't really the quality of the writing itself, it's the ENERGY.
Sure, as a kid I loved the story for being complex. Now I see it's not that deep. But I love the energy it sends off.
Exciting music playing while Eggman is hamming it up screaming about taking over the world and crushing Sonic.
Sonic jumping out a helicopter with rock music playing. It's all about the ENERGY and it's the energy that I'm missing with modern Sonic.
There's no energy at all, every Modern Sonic cutscene has everyone standing around like a sack of potatoes while sleep inducing lullaby music is playing. Whether it's comedy and they're exchanging bad jokes or serious and they're exchanging bad exposition, there's just no energy at all.
That's not the writing itself, that's the events happening, the music, the editing, the tone. The writer alone ain't gonna fix that.

Not to mention that the cutscenes in the Adventure's are intertwined directly with the content of the gameplay.
If Sonic Team refuses to give us other playable characters or doesn't create any levels lending themselves to an exciting story set piece, then Ian Flynn can't do much to add these characters or try to give the story more beats, there's no gameplay to support it.
We'll just get the " Sonic is tortured!"  thing again in Forces where dramatic storybeats are blurted out that have no support in visuals, gameplay or anything. Or Tails having to go off a rant how he did many heroic things offscreen to compremise him not doing a darn thing in-game.
In the end, Sonic Team as a whole will have to support the story, not just the writer.

Even if Ian Flynn was the main writer of Sonic Forces, what could he have done to make the " Eggman takes over the world"  plot better? It's still a black screen coming up with a quick " Oh yeah, Eggman totally took over the world off-screen, take our word for it"  text, no amount of good writing can fix that. Eggman would still not have a cool introduction showing him hamming it up enjoying being the ruler of the world, he'd still just be hanging around in Green hill Zone being beaten up by Baby Sonic despite him allegedly being the scary dictator of the world. There's only so much raw writing can do if Sonic Team isn't willing to have dedicated assets and space in their game for these events to take root in.

Ian Flynn if he was on Forces would've been localization side, thus the presentation of the game visually would pretty much be the same as before, but the writing/characterization/detail bits in English would be a slightly different direction. I assume Frontiers is going about it the same way, including the direction of the cutscenes given the open environment nature.

Oh I see Sega is taking a play from Ubisofts playbook with the “we’ll do it if ___” shit. Yknow, the thing Ubisoft were doing for nearly 2 decades stringing along fans into buying their shitty games and ports with the promise it would mean Beyond Good & Evil 2? Yeah, this is just PR stuff in a desperate attempt to squeeze some more engagement, “hype” and sales until I see or hear otherwise 

Wow, can't wait to play SA3 with boost gameplay and momentum-less physics 

3 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

I don't think Takashi Iizuka lies. I think Sega changes their mind all the time, so it feels like he lies. It's not because he said in 2017 that Sonic Adventure was not the future of the franchise that he was lying, or that he is lying now.

It's not because he said positive things about Sonic Forces that he was lying, either. Not only that, but it's not like he can see the future and predict Sonic Forces' reception.

Isn't it a bit premature to say that? He's not outright confirming that they are working on an Adventure 3. Just that he hopes that Frontiers could be the foundation for such a title to be made. 

11 minutes ago, TheOcelot said:

Wow, can't wait to play SA3 with boost gameplay and momentum-less physics 

Exactly this.

Taking the gameplay from Frontiers and using it as a basis for SA3 is missing the whole point of what people want out of an Adventure game.

I’d say missing *a* point. Not the entirety. It depends on what people actually like/look forward to when it comes to adventure style

2 minutes ago, Zadent said:

I’d say missing *a* point. Not the entirety. It depends on what people actually like/look forward to when it comes to adventure style

I personally want more of Adventure 1 and exactly none of Adventure 2 in a hypothetical Sonic Adventure return, in my personal opinion. Really didn't enjoy SA2, felt like a step back in every department except graphics and sound.

1 minute ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

I personally want more of Adventure 1 and exactly none of Adventure 2 in a hypothetical Sonic Adventure return, in my personal opinion. Really didn't enjoy SA2, felt like a step back in every department except graphics and sound.

And that’s fine. I just think the catch is that there are multiple factors to things that people like about those games. The story, the general movement, the levels. Some prefer SA1, some SA2.
 

So I don’t think missing momentum based physics and it being like Frontiers with the Boost is “missing the whole point of what people want out of an Adventure game.” Because there’s a lot there. And 1 and 2 are different in some (or a lot, depending on one’s view) of those regards.

Posted By: Brock

I really dont like Izuka to be honest. Every time he gives insights into his process and practices, I get the feeling he is just completely out of touch with what the series needs. He doesnt care about quality or game design. He just wants to throw ideas at a white board. If Sonic Frontiers is supposed to transition somehow into an Adventure game, people are going to be very disappointed. They need to get movement right if they're going to make an Adventure game. And they haven't shown they're capable of that at all.