Knuckles Investigates a Precursor Civilization in Sonic Frontiers Prologue: Divergence

Damn, that was soo good. Great animation and Knuckles not being stupid and angry for once. 

His voice is the best it has sounded in games since Heroes. Still not as good as his original SA1 and SA2 voices, but better than anything we've had since. 

5 hours ago, A super No.1 washedupgamer said:

Didn't izuka say something like he wanted frontiers to be more like the movie? Knuckles appeared in sonic 2, sonic has some moves from the movie. He punches and kicks, knuckles punches, copy and paste knuckles on the current moveset and there we go. I think It's highly likely now that knuckles may be playable in the future.

If your just going to copy/paste in a new character, then Knux wouldn't make sense considering you have two, possibly three much more closely aligned characters that would be better suited by a model swap in Shadow, Metal Sonic and Blaze. No need to cram Knux square peg into a round hole when you have other round pegs ready to go.

Now if you want to start tweaking a couple things, change some moves and some animations around, then yeah, Bring on Knux.

Such an unexpected, wonderful drop! This newer VA sounds good overall when he's just talking, but when he raises his voice he sounds too comedic. Also that music when Knux is going through Sky Sanctuary was giving me major Richard Jaques-vibes; and I couldn't be happier as one of the few 3D Blast fans lol

On 11/1/2022 at 7:47 PM, Marcello said:

His voice is the best it has sounded in games since Heroes. Still not as good as his original SA1 and SA2 voices, but better than anything we've had since. 

*Cries in Dan Green*

I don't mind Knuckles' voice, but it certainly leans hard into the "big dumb bruiser" archetype, even if Knuckles himself doesn't reflect that.

One thing I've noticed during the staff roll is the composers under "Sonic Frontiers Music" are Tomoya Ohtani, Kenichi Tokoi and Takahito Eguchi (credited also in Unleashed, Lost World and Forces, mostly cutscene music). 

No Hidekuni Horita or Mariko Nanba.

11 minutes ago, Jango said:

One thing I've noticed during the staff roll is the composers under "Sonic Frontiers Music" are Tomoya Ohtani, Kenichi Tokoi and Takahito Eguchi (credited also in Unleashed, Lost World and Forces, mostly cutscene music). 

Ah! That's nice to hear. They're all pretty great. 

Man it was so refreshing to see game Knuckles being taken seriously again after so many years. And holy crap we have actual lore again?! This short really got me even more excited to play frontiers. 

2022 is the year of the echidna. Good short. Don't care for Knuckles' voice much, but the action scene was really cool, and the entire thing was nicely animated. I also liked seeing all of the Chao, especially since all of the variants that appear can actually be raised in the Adventure games. I'm worried about what they're planning on doing lore wise in Frontiers, but that's a concern for the game itself. 8/10

4 minutes ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

I'm worried about what they're planning on doing lore wise in Frontiers, but that's a concern for the game itself. 8/10

With Ian Flynn writing, I doubt he'd bring up this important bout in the short, only to not follow it up in the game itself.

1 minute ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

With Ian Flynn writing, I doubt he'd bring up this important bout in the short, only to not follow it up in the game itself.

I'm not worried that Frontiers won't follow up on the short, I'm worried about what Sonic Team is actually going to do with the lore.

Did this remind anybody else of the Time Gears from the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers games or am I crazy? lol

1 hour ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

I'm not worried that Frontiers won't follow up on the short, I'm worried about what Sonic Team is actually going to do with the lore.

In the gameplay? Like, the lore seems more like that would fall into the writer's lap.

23 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

In the gameplay? Like, the lore seems more like that would fall into the writer's lap.

Sega and Sonic Team aren't going to just give Flynn complete creative freedom to write whatever story he wants. That's not how either IP management or game writing work. Anything Flynn does with the lore is something he is allowed to do because it's what Sega/Iizuka/Kishimoto want to do. Remember the mandates.

1 minute ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

Remember the mandates.

Ah yes, the mandates that some people tend to conflate as to how much they actually affect things. Granted, according to Flynn himself, quite a few of the mandates are dead, and he hasn't expressed any idea that they're really that restricting.

2 minutes ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

Sega and Sonic Team aren't going to just give Flynn complete creative freedom to write whatever story he wants. That's not how either IP management or game writing work. Anything Flynn does with the lore is something he is allowed to do because it's what Sega/Iizuka/Kishimoto want to do.

From what we've heard, it sounds like they got along just well, but I suppose I can't blame you for being somewhat cautious on the matter. Hopefully, the full game shall reflect such.

Really good overall, although the writing of Knuckle’s dialogue was clunky at points. Lines such as “Whose power was it originally?” really stuck out to me. I would’ve written it more like “A great power to wield, but who had it first?”

5 hours ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

Really good overall, although the writing of Knuckle’s dialogue was clunky at points. Lines such as “Whose power was it originally?” really stuck out to me. I would’ve written it more like “A great power to wield, but who had it first?”

Yeah, I do think the dialogue was a little clunky / contrived at points. The part where Knuckles finds the gear alter thing and says "looks... old. Even older than these ruins" was a bit strange. Obviously, the purpose is just to explain to the audience the alter was left by a civilisation older than the echidnas, but in-universe, there's no reason for Knuckles to know the relative age of the alter compared to anything else. Like bro what are you basing that off? You can guess the age of dilapidated rock in comparison to other dilapidated rock just by looking at it?

I was happy that Knuckles is finally being the badass he was in the past instead of being the stereotype "All Muscle and No Brain" personality that recent games have been treating him. The animation really shows that Knuckles ain't no background character who cheers on for Sonic to win, but it really shows him that he's somebody that you don't want to mess with. Also really enjoyed the callback to Sonic Adventure with Tikal and the Master Emerald.

On 11/4/2022 at 4:56 PM, Fieryfurnace said:

Yeah, I do think the dialogue was a little clunky / contrived at points. The part where Knuckles finds the gear alter thing and says "looks... old. Even older than these ruins" was a bit strange. Obviously, the purpose is just to explain to the audience the alter was left by a civilisation older than the echidnas, but in-universe, there's no reason for Knuckles to know the relative age of the alter compared to anything else. Like bro what are you basing that off? You can guess the age of dilapidated rock in comparison to other dilapidated rock just by looking at it?

This issue carries over to the main game. Like bruh they’re eroded ruins with vegetation on them.