New Sonic Frontiers Video Shows New Combat Moves [U]

Today, SEGA has released a new combat-focused trailer showing off the new moves and special techniques Sonic has picked up on his latest adventure.

UPDATE [12:00 PM ET]: The video has now been officially released, and we're dropping the "Rumor" label from it. Screenshots in this article are not from the new video. We will update this as we are able. You can check out the whole thing from the official Sonic YouTube channel here:

The video begins with a first official look at the game's Skill Tree outside of show floor demo footage. The circular tree contains twelve total nodes, beginning with the Cyloop and splitting to two main paths. Combat and environmental destruction will yield Skill Pieces (blue diamond-shaped collectables) that can be exchanged for progress on the tree. The narrator notes that making Sonic more combat-ready will be vital in taking down the game's tougher enemies.

While SEGA has been incredibly tight-lipped about what lies beyond Kronos Island, the opening island shown in demos and trailers, this new trailer suggests that enemies in the game's later islands will be significantly tougher than what they've shown thus far. To accomplish this, you'll be nabbing special Seeds of Power and Defense (the red heard-shaped collectables and the blue drop-shaped collectables respectively). Combat footage throughout the trailer spans between both Kronos Island and the desert biome, Ares Island.

Combos are highlighted in the trailer, including a "Phantom Rush" ability. Consecutive attacks will charge a meter that, once filled, lets Sonic perform rapid strikes from every angle leaving Dragon Ball-style afterimages. Another attack, unnamed in this trailer, lets Sonic rapidly bounce off the walls of an electrified arena to repeatedly strike the enemy in the center.

Two attacks that were previously shown but were not explicitly named are Sonic's long-range kick attack that fires energy waves, the "Sonic Boom" (Guile won't be happy about that), and the unusual mid-air ricochet technique, the "Wild Rush." The game's prominent Cyloop technique can not only remove enemy shields, but also to draw out rings from the ground and refill health.

Enemies will have unique ways of fighting, and may need setup before you can inflict damage. The main example shown in the trailer is a boss where Sonic must grind along three full loops of concentric rail circles to make a platform appear under the boss's vulnerable point.

Cyberspace levels aren't a significant part of the trailer, but a brief segment of 2D Green Hill shows Sonic wall jumping up specified panels and collecting a Red Star Ring. 

The end of the trailer offers one additional tidbit that was previously unseen: The cosmetics attached to the Digital Deluxe Edition. It still alludes to an undefined "Additional Gloves & Shoes for Sonic" in current advertising, but we now have at least one sample of what those cosmetics are: vintage brown leather explorer boots and matching leather (and yet still cartoony) gloves.

With Sonic having a mixed legacy of combat in games, Frontiers continues to promise significantly more involved and diverse combat strategies and scenarios than any previous entry. Some of the biggest questions about the game lie in how the game maintains progression and variety over its longer-than-normal span, and this trailer seems to address some of those concerns.

Source: Sonic Stadium Message Board