Based on the game and director comments, I can somewhat guess how things came to be. The "open zone" part is important because it's somewhere inbetween an open world and a collectathon, there's nothing quite like it. If you start with the idea of Sonic in an open world, what do you do? What kinds of challenges, objectives and story can go with that? A lot of time must have been spent just experimenting to see what sticks, so they polished up the first two islands and the game started falling apart after that. Island 3 is when they start using more 2D sections, putting section starters inside treasure spots, and introduce the hacking minigame that just so happened to be the final boss. Playtesters found the combat hard (go figure, they put a Ninja at the very start!) so they kept buffing Sonic until it invalidated the entire system. Without confidence in the combat system, most of the minibosses avoided it entirely by focusing on gimmicks and platforming challenges like you already do on the islands, leaving the Ninja series as the only one that really seems built around the combat. Likewise, after playing with momentum, I feel like they deliberately removed it because playtesters found it hard to control... When doing 3D platforming, most people want landing jumps to be painless, hence slowing down when jumping makes sense if you want the average journalist to say good things about your game. The story largely suffers from the entire ending being rushed, but also from being more of a scenario than a plot. The characters are just placed on the island and the writer is told to make up all these dialogue scenes, with the broad strokes of the plot being kinda nothing. The Japanese subtitles seem pretty off, so what does it even mean that Ian Flynn wrote the dialogue...? But the game does have a certain spark that hasn't been there in a really long time. Uneventful as it is, the story is at least taking itself seriously and the game's atmosphere goes along with it, especially in the music department. The music CARRIES the whole thing, whenever I think back on Frontiers the first thing that comes to mind is the music when exploring the islands and the epic Super Sonic themes.
It's worth pointing out that the overall plot was actually already written by Sega/Sonic Team/The powers that be/Jesus and Ian was told to write mostly dialogue and the character work we do get can be traced back to him. I hope they give him more freedom in the future since he seems to be the most competent part about the writing team.
You should re-review the game after the Sonic’s Birthday Update! It made the game refreshing and fun again, especially with the Spindash and Power-Boost in Cyberspace. Also, they made a slider for slowing down on the ground + midair. 0 on each adds the momentum everyone loves
I am planning on looking at the the game again, but I'm going to wait until the last update comes out so I can look at everything at once. The changes in the recent update have done a lot to improve my thoughts of the open zone though
I just want to say that after watching your DB:Breakers video I decided to check your other videos (that one got recommended to me randomly, tho I was watching some DB gaming videos when I saw it pop up so there's that) and since I was a casual Sonic fan as a kid and have become a proper invested Sonic fan over the past year I couldn't help but watch this video. This channel is seriously high quality, I hope that youtube recommending me a video of yours is a sign that the algorithm is starting to pick you up. You seriously deserve much more views and subscribers, but at least for now you've got one more subscriber today.
Sonic do be frontiering fr
peaktiers
you did it, buddy.
another banger sonic frontiers analysis that contains sonic frontiers gameplay, sonic frontiers cutscenes and even sonic frontiers music.
Based on the game and director comments, I can somewhat guess how things came to be.
The "open zone" part is important because it's somewhere inbetween an open world and a collectathon, there's nothing quite like it. If you start with the idea of Sonic in an open world, what do you do? What kinds of challenges, objectives and story can go with that? A lot of time must have been spent just experimenting to see what sticks, so they polished up the first two islands and the game started falling apart after that. Island 3 is when they start using more 2D sections, putting section starters inside treasure spots, and introduce the hacking minigame that just so happened to be the final boss.
Playtesters found the combat hard (go figure, they put a Ninja at the very start!) so they kept buffing Sonic until it invalidated the entire system. Without confidence in the combat system, most of the minibosses avoided it entirely by focusing on gimmicks and platforming challenges like you already do on the islands, leaving the Ninja series as the only one that really seems built around the combat.
Likewise, after playing with momentum, I feel like they deliberately removed it because playtesters found it hard to control... When doing 3D platforming, most people want landing jumps to be painless, hence slowing down when jumping makes sense if you want the average journalist to say good things about your game.
The story largely suffers from the entire ending being rushed, but also from being more of a scenario than a plot. The characters are just placed on the island and the writer is told to make up all these dialogue scenes, with the broad strokes of the plot being kinda nothing. The Japanese subtitles seem pretty off, so what does it even mean that Ian Flynn wrote the dialogue...?
But the game does have a certain spark that hasn't been there in a really long time. Uneventful as it is, the story is at least taking itself seriously and the game's atmosphere goes along with it, especially in the music department. The music CARRIES the whole thing, whenever I think back on Frontiers the first thing that comes to mind is the music when exploring the islands and the epic Super Sonic themes.
Omg hit youtuber JP my beloved
Very good video father.
Thank you son
It's worth pointing out that the overall plot was actually already written by Sega/Sonic Team/The powers that be/Jesus and Ian was told to write mostly dialogue and the character work we do get can be traced back to him. I hope they give him more freedom in the future since he seems to be the most competent part about the writing team.
You should re-review the game after the Sonic’s Birthday Update! It made the game refreshing and fun again, especially with the Spindash and Power-Boost in Cyberspace. Also, they made a slider for slowing down on the ground + midair. 0 on each adds the momentum everyone loves
I am planning on looking at the the game again, but I'm going to wait until the last update comes out so I can look at everything at once. The changes in the recent update have done a lot to improve my thoughts of the open zone though
What was he cooking fr (great vid keep up the amazing work!)
this is me when sonic explores frontiers
Peak video
Goat
I just want to say that after watching your DB:Breakers video I decided to check your other videos (that one got recommended to me randomly, tho I was watching some DB gaming videos when I saw it pop up so there's that) and since I was a casual Sonic fan as a kid and have become a proper invested Sonic fan over the past year I couldn't help but watch this video. This channel is seriously high quality, I hope that youtube recommending me a video of yours is a sign that the algorithm is starting to pick you up. You seriously deserve much more views and subscribers, but at least for now you've got one more subscriber today.
Thank you! Thats so nice of you to say, I really appreciate it
hey (with rizz)
actually, every sonic game is rushed
Sonic Frontiers is cool and all, but have you heard of Among Us?
Cringe