I love the idea of a alien cult that worships THE END, they should totally be the next villians in the next game. Im fine with any interesting villians regardless
Not too different from Christianity really, they literally obsess over and worship the idea of dying and where they wish to go after instead of simply enjoying what they have.
You read my mind when you brought up the Night the Owl radio station! I can just see it now, literally almost all of the music playing on the radio would be past Sonic tracks from others games, maybe even new remixes of some of those tracks! Such an amazing idea with so much potential, like what if SEGA did a thing where you can submit your own Sonic songs or music to the game and it'll play on the radio station as you play the game!
I haven’t finished this vid yet I just had to pause to say FINALLY someone else other than me said that sonic speed simulator has a way better art direction and theming than frontiers! The sequel really needs to take more notes from that game, I don’t wanna keep running around in hyper realistic places lol
A lot of floating rails and platforms can be fixed when you put them in the context of a more classic sonic zone. Cuz seeing a floating junk of land in lets say Green Hill wont seem out of place
You mean if the floating stuff was themed around the zone? I can see that working slightly better but I think i'd rather them mold the geometry to create certain platforming sections. Though that would make the world a lot less open, harder to run around in. It'll be interesting to see how Sonic Team approaches that, if at all.
This deserves more views, you have many good points, and i agree on the combat alot, and practically everything you said Edit: the one out everything here is want them to change the most is the wind thing, sonic is the knight if the wind, the blue blur, not a flash rippoff, like they need to go back to the originality sonic has rather than being another lighting speedster, he needs his wind back, and more wind based movesets, and zero lighting
Great ideas great video. I never once thought How much I actually wanted more weirder less realistic open zones for the next game. I just imagined sonic running through a funky ass shroomed out planet running through big grassy loops and fighting big alien frogs
The thing I imagine when I think of an open world sonic game is immediately angel island. Imagine like in SA1 you can go to the master emerald alter but once you go In some caves you can go to lava reef zone or something. That just sounds like a blast to me.
EXACTLY, the interconnectivity of Sonic 3K lends itself to being translated perfectly into a 3D Open Zone. At least a lot better than South or Westside island would. I’d love to see it in a future game.
12:35 I was gonna say that you can turn this off in the settings but now I'm not sure. I only play with mods anyway so either I disabled those cutscenes in the settings menu or on the mod manager menu lmao
Yup! You can, played through most of the game that way They were cool the first couple of times but they tend to ruin the flow The attacks are still slow, although there may actually be a few that go a bit faster
20:05 i sweat this is sonic x season 3 all over again… and it would be a perfect open world game, traveling through space and different planets would be fun
Dude I love the combat in this game though some of you say its weird im a huge combat fan.Gotta say combat and speed kinda mix well with sonic. I hope they make it good in sonic frontiers 2
Super neat video, appreciated hearing someone chill talk about the game! Only recently played through Frontiers and throughly enjoyed it even with its tedious open world gimmicks I kinda like the real environments for the tone of the game and how it's contrasted by cyberspace It looks pretty, even if it's for the sake of something more creative, that could be spent in cyberspace (the city is the strongest one to me) Also I find the precise movement in cyberspace the cool blend of satisfying and approachable that Forces was attempting, and I do enjoy it as a different boost style, think it shines mostly for 2D actually as 3D is where some of the jank like the turning stuff shows up, but it's still good Could use some flare, tho, and it's a shame that the fun speedrunny stuff tends to feel inconsistent, but the gauntlet of all the levels from each island is mostly what I play post-game Found you from your Forces video, I like your vibes and just subbed! Excited to see what's next
I have never watched a video and yelled "OH MY GOD, HE'S LITERALLY ME." until tonight, because holy hell...EVERYTHING you say is stuff I've thought about for a long time now. From making the new characters Blaze and Shadow, level aesthetics, the combat being more bouncy and less stiff, to small stuff like getting rid of those stupid enemy title cards. LEGIT, I've been saying Tangle should be Sonic's equivalent to Spider-Man! We're on the same wavelength man, I feel so validated lol It also helps that it's an engaging video, with genuinely cool ideas. Great video, dude!
I played a Mario 64 rom hack the other day which repurposed the pixel textures from the old games as textures for the random platforming challenges. If they have to keep the floating platforming ninsense in the open zone then maybe giving them classic sonic textures would be more interesting. Like for example you have a waterfall in the open world - and if you hit a switch then all these floating blocks appear with Hydrocity textures on them and you have a mini challenge.
Honestly I agree with literally everything you said other than that I would remove cyberspace and the boost just to go all out on momentum as I think the boost has run its course
This game is awesome! I still play it and have poured hundreds of hours into it! I just love running around the open zones and completing those platforming challenges! While the platforms are scattered around with seemingly no cohesion, I think they're still well designed and add to that mystery of looking AI generated, which helps with the backstory of Sage, and I don't mind the platforms being suspended above the ground, as I still think the game looks great. There's just something about it, the aesthetic and the music, and especially the story, that makes me want to keep playing it. The enemy and boss designs are stellar. The titan fights are highlights, though gameplay wise, they are really easy. I agree about Cyberspace, and I don't mind them reusing old levels as long as they are fun. I wish the combat was a little better, and Sonic's parry timing should be changed across each difficulty. It's bizarre that they didn't do it for Sonic yet for other characters they did. With the latest patch, the physics are better, it's less buggy, but the difficulty has been eased, which was in response to the complaints from fans, but I wish they did that as a choice, rather than replacing the previous difficulty. But despite that, I think this is better than Shadow Generations. I think it has the soul of an open world Sonic game. Though I do wish they'd further update it a little more, as it would be perfect for me. Do you think they'll still update or patch this in the near future? I'd love it if they could fix the pop-in. I can't believe it's been a year since the best Sonic game got the best update! I find all playable characters fun to play, though not as much as Sonic, of course. They made the platforming challenges much harder and more open-ended, less linear than previous ones, which were too simple and automated. The new ending is a mixed bag for me. But the story is even better than before. What makes this game better than others is that I think it does playable characters the best. It also doesn't waste your playtime with non Sonic gimmicks as much as otherSonic games, especially Adventures 1 and 2, and Sonic feels great and fast to control. I disagree heavily when people say it's a Breath of the Wild ripoff as while it's clearly inspired, it also has a lot of differences, and I think I like it more. I even like that some challenges make use of momentum and make you think outside the box. The puzzles are mostly not challenging, but more like movement exercises, and i don't mind doing them. Overall, a masterpiece ✨️ Yeah, I don't mind the reusing of level layouts as the new movement makes it feel different. I similarly don't mind the koco quests, with most being optional, as long as they're not too annoying or pacebreaking. The worst part is probably the pinball minigame or the laser puzzle or the crane task. Cyberspace looks exactly like Generations, but I do like how they at least added the digital effect to make it feel new. Also, I like the presentation. I think the animations are quite good in general, better than in previous games, and I don't mind the realistic artstyle. While it's a triple A game, I do wish there were some CGI cutscenes, but that's probably because of the day-night system, so everything runs in real-time. As I said before, I really liked Frontiers, and it was almost perfect. In my opinion, it can only get better, not worse. Forces, while I think it's very overhated, and I kinda like it, I also find it kinda hard to defend, and I feel it was the dip in budget and quality and passion, it terms of both gameplay, design, story, and presentation, even though I don't think it's souless or lazy like many say. Frontiers, to me, felt like a high budget game, even though some corners were clearly cut. Not to be a blatant hater, but I don't think we'll ever return to that dip of content in the 2010s, as while I think saying it was the definition of mediocrity is a bit harsh, I don't think you could get worse than that. The next mainline game might not always be better than the last, but at least it won't ever be of that quality, let alone worse. Frontiers might have been great, but it can only get better, and that's hard to imagine!
What I want is for an adventure like game but it has the unleashed hubworlds and adventure fields. I want hubworlds with characters, the actual towns. Then I want an area off the the hubworld where you enter the open zone and then from there can find the levels, but you do the levels in order like in unleashed.
Ngl The IDW Appreciation Is absolutely amazing Love that shit to my Core The Archie run was too daunting for me to get into But the Idw run always makes me smile. Every single comic has such good world building that makes this world feel so real
ik what is supposed to be but it LOOKS like he's just shooting random energy blasts. That and the version where he just holds his hands out and those same blasts come out of his palms. Or the one where he creates a bunch of spinballs out of nothing.
Great video! Frontiers truly became one of my favorite Sonic games However, here are some things I was waiting for, but probably will never ever get: - An exclusive transformation. I thought all those titan fights in Super Sonic form would escalate for the final boss with a brand new transformation that would be totally different from Super Sonic. I'm waiting for that since Excalibur Sonic in Black Knight. Honestly, I'm sick of Super Sonic everytime. I want something new. However I'm still loving the initial idea of Sage and Super Sonic teaming up and that final boss gameplay. - Main protagonists should be the 06's legendary trio: Sonic, Shadow AND SILVER! I'm still salty this game was framing the 3 hedgehogs would be the most important and prominent characters of the franchise only to ditch that idea. Please, bring back my boy Silver! Just imagine if you would have played Frontiers with those 3. Each one of them would have completed an island, have their own adventure, have their own skill list, have a Titan fight with their super form, and at the end, their path would finally cross and they would have to team up to beat the final boss. - A good and more present villain/antagonist. Unfortunatly, The END was absent the entire game and popped out of nowhere at the end so it didn't feel engaging imo. Mephiles in 06 was great! Well, at least, we didn't have Eggman as the main villain AGAIN. - Long, rich and stunning stages like we had in Unleashed (day stages) and Generations. Cyberspace stages were on the right path but way too short and lackluster. - Fights between characters. With all these combat skills each characters have, just imagine if they would fight each other. Sonic Battle was one of my all time favourite Sonic game and when I saw how Sonic could fight in Frontiers, it made me think of it. We could even have a game exclusively for that. A new Sonic Battle type of game where we would get that kind of fight. Fellow Sonic fans, what do you think? Did I forget something?
I'm not into Open zone games in Sonic games, but I'll have to get used to it, since it's was pretty good. I'm just used to by Sonic games in normal ones, like Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Generations, and Sonic Forces.
4:24 О! Дизайн открытых зон! Выглядит не очень длинным. ... 9:43 О-О... Бро, это были одни из самых длинных, насыщенные и двигаюшиеся в правильную сторону мысли, 5 минут, которые я когда-либл видел по геймдизайну в Сонике.
I don't know about anyone else but spider especially the final horizon remix was my fav music for fighting an enemy in the whole game. Not gameplay wise just music wise.
what people say about Sonic movement is that: ''If you make the characters too fast he will fell bad to control so you have to balance their speed to NOT be so fast and NOT so slow" well, I have a way to fix that, So the reason why it feels bad to move slow on sonic boosting games is something called steering sensitivity it makes the sensitivity of turning very low on boosting games but if you put a way too high steering sensitivity you will feel to slippery to move fast making things very hard to move around at high speeds so to fix that I would make something that I call: progressive steering sensitivity which makes the sensitivity slightly lower as you pick up speed and I would also add the abiltity to reach ridiculous speeds but with the difficulty of picking up that speed so if you take sonic adventure you can see that sonic has a max speed that he can reach but what if there was a Sonic that can reach insane speeds like the boost games but with the need of an insane amount of momentum
Personally, I would really love for them to not only remove stat levelling, but also remove Exp and the Skill Tree in general. It just... never felt very Sonic to me? Just start us off with a mostly complete moveset, and then hide several upgrades in each open zone for us to find, kinda like the Adventure games. These could be movement-based (stuff like the Light Speed Dash, Drop Dash, Cyloop and Bounce Bracelet) or combat-based, but just reward us for moving around and exploring, don't tie progression to what everyone else in the industry does, tie it to something that _feels_ distinctly Sonic.
@@Romanode_ That's a good question. Personally I'm not huge on combat with the regular enemies in Frontiers (hence why I actually really liked when the Final Horizon only had enemies as an aid or obstacle for platforming, or as part of one of the tower trials), so I wouldn't mind if they mostly got rid of small-fry enemies, or used them more as platforming aids, small obstacles or enemies you bop into once to kill them and keep the flow going. Though I think the combat with the regular bosses/guardians was pretty good. I think even the biggest fans of Frontiers' combat usually talk about Guardian and Titan fights anyways. The obvious reward from those right now is Portal Gears, which I think is a good reward and should probably be kept. Alternatively, I'd be down to see them hide movement upgrades in the open zone, but keep combat upgrades in a skill tree with exp. I think that probably makes the most sense if combat remains an integral part of the game. I definitely don't think Sonic should have an Attack and Defense stat you can upgrade (and arguably a speed stat as well, but for different reasons). It kinda messed with the way Frontiers' difficulty progressed, and makes the late-game a complete cakewalk way too easily. I think keeping Ring Capacity upgrades is probably a good idea though, and attaching those to combat exp might work pretty well. Alternatively, if the skill tree were to be drastically expanded, sticking about 5 Ring Capacity upgrades that let you have maybe 100 more rings in there could work, though the skill tree really does need to be significantly larger for it to not feel like half the tree is just rings. I'm not a professional game designer, I'm mostly just rambling about my preferences so it's easy for me to forget how changing one thing impacts other systems and aspects of a game. In general though, even if they kept the combat & upgrades exactly the same as it was in Frontiers, I would be mostly happy. The game was fun enough as is, and I think the most important aspects to improve on would definitely be the world design and platforming sections, as those are the main things most people will be spending the most time on, as well as the animation quality both during gameplay and cutscenes.
Here are some of my ideas for a new open zone sonic game: -Have the platforming challenges be optional. Sonic could run to pedestals around the map and make the platforms and rails appear, and when he uses them again, they disappear. This would make the islands look a lot better during standard gameplay. -Give Sonic momentum while running -Larger open zones -Lots more biomes (snow, jungle, tropical, stuff like that) -Toggleable Super Sonic transformation when you 100% the game - More recognizable landmarks and set pieces than the ones we got in Frontiers. -Deeper combat system What would you guys want in the next open zone Sonic game?
Idk about having optional platforming challenges. A lot of the fun came from seamlessly launching from one platforming section to the next. Making them optional would highlight how same-y they all feel, without the freedom to chain them together and use them to your advantage. Making us tackle one at a time would prolly ruin that part of the game for me. I like the idea of Super Sonic in the Open Zone tho, that'd be sick.
I was hoping you'd talk about the Cyberspace levels that are exclusive to Update 3, since it featured the most open 3D levels I've seen in a long, long time. What do you think about those?
i was mixed on it, I didn’t fw a lot of the gimmicks but I liked the creative use of the spindash in the level design, moveable camera, and level length. I’d say they’re a step in the right direction.
an IDW game would be awesome especially if its about the metal virus that was peak but anything could work it has so much going for it we need atleast one game
11:27 i mean...is it a bad thing he has electric aura around him and shoot energy waves?? I thought it was cool plus i really wished sonic could have a move like this just like shadow throwing chaos spears i wanted sonic to have something similar which here it is... the sonic boom attack aka the energy wave blasts so i would consider this an upgrade for sonic it just made him stronger
This may be a hot take, but I kinda wish they would just STOP trying to add more lore to the Chaos Emeralds. Its okay if they're there, but they don't need to be deeply tied in with the lore of the story itself... Like, the Chaos Emeralds are connected to the Master Emerald. They're tied to the planet and are a key part of Light and Dark Gaia's cycle. They're connected to the ancient Echidna race. They're connected to Chaos and the Chao. And on top of all that, they're SOMEHOW FROM SPACE BROUGHT TO THE PLANET BY ALIENS. How??? I thought they were directly tied to the planet itself? Are they from space or are they not? We don't need more conflicting and "deep" lore for the Emeralds. They're magical super-powered rocks, what more do we need to know? Half the stories in the franchise just constantly revolve around them. The Meta Era sucked, but one thing I liked about them is that they were actually able to take a break from the Chaos Emeralds for once.
Theres a ROBLOX game called pyrite adventure that is getting a 3rd entry soon, and it is, obviously, heavily based on the adventure games. The new one will be based on SA2, and the mech stages are much faster. Like the speed of knuckles in adventure with a gun. They should do something like that
i would love to see to see sonic’s character model from unleashed or generations make a return. i feel like the forces model doesn’t fit in with the open zone feeling they’re trying to portray, and i just really don’t like it. i would also love to see more cgi cutscenes, as the intro for unleashed is still to this day the best looking a sonic game has ever looked.
I feel like we’ve reached the point where the in-game cutscenes could look about as good as those CGI cutscenes. Again look at sumn like rift apart, with the right animation budget they could definitely reach that level.
Absolutely nailed it on the gameplay side of things, though I think combat needs to implement proper combos and a ranking system similar to DMC. But for the music, yeah ima need Ohtani to drop the EDM already. Keep the metalcore tho. And storywise, major improvements are needed. Frontiers' story is so lifeless and bland, and its characters don't leave any impression. Not helped by the animation, dialogue and voice acting. Ideally I'd have a new Sonic VA, cause it's kinda telling that Roger needs to basically stop sounding like Sonic in order to sound natural.
There characters are "kind" of boring in frontiers since they are arguably have been through worse story wise with them killing the god of time and seeing the world fracture in unleashed, but they never changed their personality when it happed, unleashed and generations in particular are kind of my lynch pin points since generation has a similar setup to frontiers with sonic needing to save his friends and explore different levels to do it but he doesn't act overly worried. them being one note isn't great but there is a reason they are one note. knuckle's strength leads into his character of being protective and being a guardian along with the fact that he is forced to isolate himself to do his job, so he is less adapted to modern things or other people, but he is also very honorable. Sonic is laid back and chill and looking for his next thrill and does right when he sees something is wrong. Even in generations where I don't think he was written to be emotionally aware; his priority was to still save his friends even if he wasn't constantly talking about them. Amy: sees sonic as his hero and idol and because of that it gets her to push past her comfort zone and do more exciting things from helping to defeat the god of destruction to saving the earth from a crashing spaceship. There was already more past her being a fan girl since she is just a more caring person in general compared to sonic or knuckles, on one hand I can see how it's annoying but there is a reason she became popular in the first place and her being more somber takes away from that? especially with her voice not being energetic and this isn't a realization she comes too. like when she first saw sonic on the island, she didn't run to him and then phased and did it over and over until she started to realize the gravity of the situation and become less cheery. We assume she just understands this the moment she enters the island. when she has arguably been through worse. Tail: I don't really have any complaints I thought his Insite on the ancient's technology was nice and was probably the had most interesting interactions in the game besides Eggman and sage. But I think his tech use has been underutilized as a character. There characterization is not bad but is definitely lacking and I hope that they bring back their more expressive personalities. Dream team and murder of sonic the hedgehog are on the right track and I hope they are kept in mind when continuing the story epically the visual novel since it was advertised with frontiers so the people that got it really care about the characters and story
Agree with pretty much all of this, plus of minus a couple things, felt like adding on to it. So one issue I've noticed is how confused the moment to moment pacing is, specifically when it comes to traversal/platforming and combat. In terms of how they affect the pacing of the game, they're in complete conflict with each other. Traversal requires that you make good use of your movement options and the terrain to get from place to place, you want to constantly be finding ways to get air time with ramps and clever use of the environment, there's a real flow to it, and it's actively in the best interest of that flow to AVOID fighting. Forgetting about the shallowness of combat for a second, even pretending it's on par with the actual best games in that sort of style (Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Rising, Bayonetta, etc.), engaging in combat intrinsically means you've stopped the traversal/platforming gameplay, and vice versa. If all you wanna do is fight, being intrinsically encouraged by the other side of gameplay to avoid combat is counterproductive, and interrupts that flow too. There's no cohesion. In the older games on the other hand, take SA1 and SA2, combat was a PART of platforming. Enemies, as is standard for platformers, mostly exist as an extension of platforming itself, functioning as variations on platforms with homing chains, and something like spike traps with enemies littering levels. There's ONE set of singularly focused movement mechanics that get recontextualized in the face of enemies. The homing attack is the single concession to combat in that game, and it also serves to make certain elements of movement easier. Homing in on items and springs, or as a short air dash in situations that call for it. But on the OTHER hand, you can't have the spectacle of the Titan fights without a somewhat more complex combat system. Personally, as much as I love them, I think we lose more by having the game design's focus split to accommodate the combat than we gain without it, but that's neither here nor there. Combat's not going anywhere so how do we make it so that it doesn't break movement flow and vice versa? Well I think for one, the homing attack needs to be WAY faster. Stopping in place every time you do it feels AWFUL. One thing I think might work is for Sonic's speed to affect combat. Maybe if you're going fast enough, you can pull enemies with you after an attack, so you can keep a combo going even if you're blasting through an area. Maybe enemies could be designed to chase and keep up with you if you start a combo chain like that, so you're not getting hounded by them all the time, but you can still fight with groups of enemies on the move. There's also the matter of art direction. As things stand, nothing is very "Sonic" and I'm not just talking about level aesthetics, I'm talking about EVERYTHING. Sonic was designed by 3 artists, Naoto Ohshima, Yuji Uekawa, and Satoshi Okano, the latter of whom is responsible for the twisty, noodliness of the Adventure era box art, alongside Uekawa. These are the artists that made the character and his world, and their visual styles should hold the greatest influence on Sonic's art direction as a result, but they don't Most of Sonic's looks come from Pixar, because most of Sonic's current looks come from Unleashed which is most influenced by Pixar. Unleashed is a GORGEOUS game, but it's a gorgeous game that doesn't look very much like Sonic. Sonic CD's intro, the OVA, Sonic Battle, Sonic Riders, these are all things that directly reference the visual styles of Sonic's creators while having their own identity and as a result, all look like Sonic. Same thing with Mania it looks like the classic games artistically because it references them artistically. I have some minor critiques about characterization too, specifically with Sonic and Amy. Post MoSTH, there's been a lot of discussion in the community about Amy's lack of "fire", how she doesn't have the same bubbly energy (sans the Sonic stalking) that used to define her. She's mellowed out, and there doesn't seem to be a good canon justification like there is for Tails' short lived growth from SA1 to 06, she's just different now. Sonic's issues are more important though, namely that he's too nice and patient. Sonic became a household name by being an impatient, cocky delinquent who'd actively give the player shit for wasting his time and making him stand around doing nothing. He made his frustration and general annoyance known, and he wasn't usually nice or "soft spoken" about it. Like, if you don't move for a few minutes in Sonic CD, he won't just impatiently tap his foot, HE'LL LEAVE, and he'll cost you a life. Sonic, written accurately, is abrasive, he's a punk teenager with a heart of gold. Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakushou is the character I've seen him compared to best, and it's a good fit. We only see glimpses of that guy in Frontiers (though this whole thing is part of a larger problem with Sonic nowadays, not just in Frontiers) with "Careful? Where's the fun in that?" and "Sometimes it's a spinning sign, sometimes it's a big ol' ring" but those are just moments, when what I'm describing should make up the bulk of Sonic's outward personality. Also, and this might be contentious to say, but it's not said with any malice, but Sonic needs a new English voice. Roger's performance was great in Frontiers all things considered, but his voice is just too naturally deep to suit the character. Sonic's voice needs to be higher and growlier to sound like Sonic, for the same reason you need a deep, James Earl Jones-esque voice for a character to really sound like Darth Vader. You wouldn't hire a Micheal Cera or Tom Holland to play Vader, or you're not gonna find him intimidating and cool in the same way. Like, you could do it, and they're capable actors so they could at least get the personality down, but it would still negatively impact your perception of the character. Cast Roger as Shadow or Knuckles, he's great at deeper, whisperier voices. Someone more akin to Junichi Kanemaru, Ryan Drummond, or Jason Griffith. If it were up to me, Max Mittleman would've been voicing the character ages ago. Also, broadly speaking, they really need to avoid answering so many big lore questions so explicitly. We do not need to actually know the Chaos Emeralds' origin story, they're more meaningful the less you know about how they were made and by who. I appreciate the lore answers to some things, but like with horror, leaving things to the imagination is much more powerful than just answering all the questions.
First of all, thanks for taking the time to comment all of this. I agree w the art-style thing but idk about the characterization. To me Frontiers Sonic is what happens when you take that cocky, snarky persona from the 90's and 2000's and age him up a lil bit. Like you said elements of that character are still in there, but this is a more mature version of the character, I personally don't mind the change as long as they don't completely strip what makes Sonic Sonic. If it were up to me they would have never recast Jason Griffith, his work in Black Knight was perfect. But Rogers work in Frontiers has been my favorite direction for the character since he was recast 15 yrs ago. I don't think we ever need to learn how the chaos emeralds were made or why, but i'd be interested in learning more of their history and the different factions attached to it. Their story should be the glue that holds these next few games together. Again thanks for commenting, I love hearing everyone's opinions on this stuff.
@@Romanode_ See, my thinking with Sonic's characterization is that he SHOULDN'T mature. Part of what made Sonic great is that his personality was really brazen and juvenile, and like with Amy, mellowing that out to have him be more level headed makes him less interesting. It removes some of his more interesting flaws like how he responds to impatience and kind of softens up his snark. Like I said, MINOR critique, it's not ruinous or anything, Sonic is still mostly recognizable as Sonic, character wise, but I don't think it goes far enough. It's one of those things that you don't notice until you notice, and when you do, it's hard not to. and it extends to IDW, Prime, and the movies too to varying degrees. It just feels like he's missing something, and that "something" is the full extent of his "attitude". Like, ok, we talk about Sonic being cocky and sassy, and that's all fine and good, and it's true, but there's more to it. That's just the surface of it. The example I like to use when talking about this is his idle animation in Sonic 1, because that's the first, most iconic instance of Sonic's personality and what made him an icon. People see him doing that and think it's just him being cheeky with the player. Sonic taps his foot because tapping his foot is what Sonic DOES, in their minds. He does it in modern games because that's what he did in the old games. But that animation in Sonic 1 wasn't a reference to anything, Sonic was just getting pissed off at the player for making him wait, it was a genuine expression of emotion, of irritation borne from Sonic's underlying impatience. And again, some of that IS in Frontiers, you can see it during Amy's Koco quest, when he's itching to move on and save them from Cyberspace, but more often he's being the mature, patient, understanding one. The lack of some thrill seeking excitement chasing makes sense given the somber tone, but Sonic from the beginning was kind of a punk (in the literal sense of the term). An anti authoritarian, rude, cocky, rebellious, competitive, thrill seeking delinquent teenager with no patience, a smart mouth and a sharp tongue, with a heart of gold and wisdom beyond his years. He doesn't need to sass to demonstrate that part of his personality, if that makes sense. Tapping his foot and spouting one liners are more external things, but the internal element, the emotional core of those behaviors is part of what's lacking. Sonic doesn't feel like the kind of guy who'd throw a brick at a cop car and spray paint their windshield for bothering his friends , or just because he doesn't like cops, anymore, he's missing some of that delinquent, counterculture edge. Now, a LOT of the problem comes from how Sonic is animated. Just animating him to get bored with a long bit of exposition, laying down and closing his eyes and visibly tuning out would go a much longer way than relying on dialogue to tell you he's running out of patience. It's a long running problem, but Sonic games need to go back to the drawing board with their character animation. So much standing around talking, with maybe a couple basic poses to add some character. For the issues I have with Roger playing Sonic (I liked his performance in Frontiers, but the issue is the insurmountable depth of his voice, a limitation he can't overcome without compromise, it was his acting chops alone that made him work in that game, not his voice), I think they'd be much less pronounced with better, completely overhauled character animation so we could SEE Sonic acting like Sonic, instead of just having to HEAR it. Again, it doesn't RUIN anything, I'm phrasing these as problems but this is more a "Things are good, but this is how I think they could be improved" kinda sentiment. Me being kind of a perfectionist and not willing to be satisfied with good enough, or even GREAT, is admittedly part of it. It's all giant steps forward, we're miles closer to Sonic's golden age than we've been in decades, but on basically ANY level, I don't think we're there yet...Besides the music anyway...and Knuckles, change nothing about how he's being characterized.
I see where you’re coming from, we can both agree that the character animation needs lot of work. What do you think of the little we saw from Shadow Generations’ character animation?
@@Romanode_ It looks better. Not as much as I'd like, but this is a tie in to a remake/re-release, so the time/budget probably isn't all there compared to a full release. For the level of animation I'd say the series needs, every character model needs to be fully overhauled and replaced with ones that are properly designed and rigged to squash & stretch and exaggerate posing. Sonic's stories are shounen battle/adventure (when not handled by wannabe saturday morning cartoon, hack writers), but the character designs are pure Mickey Mouse, 1930s-1940s rubber hose animation. Those poses need to be stretched and warped to the extreme to bring out the most of character emotions and acting, and lots more needs to be done in the latter acting department. Characters need to do much more than just stand, walk, run, and talk, they need the full range of behaviors to get the most out of body language. Also, facial animation needs an overhaul too. Dream Team was a step forward, but it still doesn't push facial expressions to the degree the rubber hose cartoon designs demand. Jank as they are Sonic Adventure's facial animations done right are the goal here. Warping and stretching the shapes of the facial anatomy like a cartoon character making anime expressions is the ideal. The tech and techniques weren''t there yet in 3D, but like, look at images of the jank SA1 cutscene expressions and compare them to Frontiers'. Frontiers goes much further than anything since the Unleashed opening for 3D Sonic, but there's just no comparison in terms of expressive range. So much so that the movie models are actually more similar to SA1 than the modern stuff. None of the "Side mouth, front mouth" debate, they rightly treat Sonic's muzzle like cheek muscles and stretch and reshape it like they would for any other kind of character. But in terms of like, action animation? Sonic X Shadow Gens already looks miles ahead of even Frontiers, everything looks so much more fluid and alive.
The story didn’t have any thought besides. Plaster references everywhere and ruin Sonic and Amy. With this goofy “I wanna share my love with the world” stuff. What does that mean first of all and wasn’t that what Amy was already doing? And then the story is so melancholic for LITERALLY NO REASON! “Oh No Amy… I’ll save you” with his deep ass basic ahh human adventurer roger voice with no energy at all. Then Amy says something along the lines of “I’m not a damsel in distress anymore” when she’s literally only been one in like two games. Knuckles wants to be more free from his job of guarding the master emerald. When he’s already been ignoring his job multiple times. Sure he usually doesn’t see Sonic and pals in months but we cant act like he hasn’t been doing this.
Now all SEGA needs to do is follow through by giving a Sonic Team a massive budget and hire a lot of new employees to work on the next game so they have more manpower.
Frontiers was too afraid to be a good game It as so many flaws Still retains the problems of the adventures series that keeps plaguing the series over and over again Lack of cgi custcenes The game is not polished The game is replayable so easily wth MODS only Is dull , kinda bland Stiff uglier character model Copy n pasted assets from forces Non original levels . Pretty trash forgettable music exept "im here" Final horizon update mzde the game alot bad Custcenes arent good anymore unlike the 2000s Repetitive gameplay and bland boring levels , poorly designed mechanics and The story is good but could be executed alot properly if it wasnt for ian wth his sometimes annoying references that barely helps the plot . But frontiers is hopeful its a step in the right direction , despite the many dissapointments this game brought .
I love the idea of a alien cult that worships THE END, they should totally be the next villians in the next game. Im fine with any interesting villians regardless
Not too different from Christianity really, they literally obsess over and worship the idea of dying and where they wish to go after instead of simply enjoying what they have.
You read my mind when you brought up the Night the Owl radio station! I can just see it now, literally almost all of the music playing on the radio would be past Sonic tracks from others games, maybe even new remixes of some of those tracks! Such an amazing idea with so much potential, like what if SEGA did a thing where you can submit your own Sonic songs or music to the game and it'll play on the radio station as you play the game!
it it can work like Joana podcast in spider-man Ps4 and miles morales you can chose to leave it on or off.
the most wild thing? blaze is kishimoto's favorite sonic character, and he'd love to include her in a game someday
WHAT IS BRO WAITING FOR 😭🙏🏽
@@Romanode_ RIGHT? she deserves to be playable again
Why tf he waiting tho
Is that why she was the one selected to be the third Knight of the Round Table instead of another likely Sonic friend?
@legoboy7107 I think so, Silver would’ve been an obvious choice.
I haven’t finished this vid yet I just had to pause to say FINALLY someone else other than me said that sonic speed simulator has a way better art direction and theming than frontiers! The sequel really needs to take more notes from that game, I don’t wanna keep running around in hyper realistic places lol
dude, this is it. this needs some more views it's perfect
"Yall really made momentum a slur" is so real
Cant wait to play the Jewel story and organize files for 2 hours
Most of his attacks are based on the wind. the blade kick is him kicking so fast it triggers a sonic boom each swing.
A lot of floating rails and platforms can be fixed when you put them in the context of a more classic sonic zone. Cuz seeing a floating junk of land in lets say Green Hill wont seem out of place
On the other hand floating junk has to be Green Hill themed for it to work.
You mean if the floating stuff was themed around the zone? I can see that working slightly better but I think i'd rather them mold the geometry to create certain platforming sections.
Though that would make the world a lot less open, harder to run around in. It'll be interesting to see how Sonic Team approaches that, if at all.
The idea of Sage being like Mario and Cappy would actually be a cool and unique mechanic. Well, unique for Sonic anyways.
This deserves more views, you have many good points, and i agree on the combat alot, and practically everything you said
Edit: the one out everything here is want them to change the most is the wind thing, sonic is the knight if the wind, the blue blur, not a flash rippoff, like they need to go back to the originality sonic has rather than being another lighting speedster, he needs his wind back, and more wind based movesets, and zero lighting
Great ideas great video. I never once thought
How much I actually wanted more weirder less realistic open zones for the next game. I just imagined sonic running through a funky ass shroomed out planet running through big grassy loops and fighting big alien frogs
The thing I imagine when I think of an open world sonic game is immediately angel island. Imagine like in SA1 you can go to the master emerald alter but once you go In some caves you can go to lava reef zone or something. That just sounds like a blast to me.
EXACTLY, the interconnectivity of Sonic 3K lends itself to being translated perfectly into a 3D Open Zone. At least a lot better than South or Westside island would. I’d love to see it in a future game.
12:35 I was gonna say that you can turn this off in the settings but now I'm not sure. I only play with mods anyway so either I disabled those cutscenes in the settings menu or on the mod manager menu lmao
Yup! You can, played through most of the game that way
They were cool the first couple of times but they tend to ruin the flow
The attacks are still slow, although there may actually be a few that go a bit faster
20:05 i sweat this is sonic x season 3 all over again… and it would be a perfect open world game, traveling through space and different planets would be fun
lol that's what inspired the idea, the metarex arc was 🔥
Dude I love the combat in this game though some of you say its weird im a huge combat fan.Gotta say combat and speed kinda mix well with sonic. I hope they make it good in sonic frontiers 2
Shadow's max boost should be the Chaos Boost from 06.
you fully understand everything abt sonic’s level design , world building and level aesthetic. great vid
appreciate you!
Super neat video, appreciated hearing someone chill talk about the game! Only recently played through Frontiers and throughly enjoyed it even with its tedious open world gimmicks
I kinda like the real environments for the tone of the game and how it's contrasted by cyberspace
It looks pretty, even if it's for the sake of something more creative, that could be spent in cyberspace (the city is the strongest one to me)
Also I find the precise movement in cyberspace the cool blend of satisfying and approachable that Forces was attempting, and I do enjoy it as a different boost style, think it shines mostly for 2D actually as 3D is where some of the jank like the turning stuff shows up, but it's still good
Could use some flare, tho, and it's a shame that the fun speedrunny stuff tends to feel inconsistent, but the gauntlet of all the levels from each island is mostly what I play post-game
Found you from your Forces video, I like your vibes and just subbed! Excited to see what's next
I appreciate the support glad you enjoyed!
Excellent video with many great ideas!
Thank you! 🙏🏽
I have never watched a video and yelled "OH MY GOD, HE'S LITERALLY ME." until tonight, because holy hell...EVERYTHING you say is stuff I've thought about for a long time now.
From making the new characters Blaze and Shadow, level aesthetics, the combat being more bouncy and less stiff, to small stuff like getting rid of those stupid enemy title cards. LEGIT, I've been saying Tangle should be Sonic's equivalent to Spider-Man!
We're on the same wavelength man, I feel so validated lol
It also helps that it's an engaging video, with genuinely cool ideas. Great video, dude!
Thank you so much! I’m glad this resonated with you.
I played a Mario 64 rom hack the other day which repurposed the pixel textures from the old games as textures for the random platforming challenges. If they have to keep the floating platforming ninsense in the open zone then maybe giving them classic sonic textures would be more interesting.
Like for example you have a waterfall in the open world - and if you hit a switch then all these floating blocks appear with Hydrocity textures on them and you have a mini challenge.
Honestly I agree with literally everything you said other than that I would remove cyberspace and the boost just to go all out on momentum as I think the boost has run its course
I really like these ideas
Blaze comeback would be dope
This game is awesome! I still play it and have poured hundreds of hours into it! I just love running around the open zones and completing those platforming challenges! While the platforms are scattered around with seemingly no cohesion, I think they're still well designed and add to that mystery of looking AI generated, which helps with the backstory of Sage, and I don't mind the platforms being suspended above the ground, as I still think the game looks great. There's just something about it, the aesthetic and the music, and especially the story, that makes me want to keep playing it. The enemy and boss designs are stellar. The titan fights are highlights, though gameplay wise, they are really easy. I agree about Cyberspace, and I don't mind them reusing old levels as long as they are fun. I wish the combat was a little better, and Sonic's parry timing should be changed across each difficulty. It's bizarre that they didn't do it for Sonic yet for other characters they did. With the latest patch, the physics are better, it's less buggy, but the difficulty has been eased, which was in response to the complaints from fans, but I wish they did that as a choice, rather than replacing the previous difficulty. But despite that, I think this is better than Shadow Generations. I think it has the soul of an open world Sonic game. Though I do wish they'd further update it a little more, as it would be perfect for me. Do you think they'll still update or patch this in the near future? I'd love it if they could fix the pop-in.
I can't believe it's been a year since the best Sonic game got the best update! I find all playable characters fun to play, though not as much as Sonic, of course. They made the platforming challenges much harder and more open-ended, less linear than previous ones, which were too simple and automated. The new ending is a mixed bag for me. But the story is even better than before. What makes this game better than others is that I think it does playable characters the best. It also doesn't waste your playtime with non Sonic gimmicks as much as otherSonic games, especially Adventures 1 and 2, and Sonic feels great and fast to control. I disagree heavily when people say it's a Breath of the Wild ripoff as while it's clearly inspired, it also has a lot of differences, and I think I like it more. I even like that some challenges make use of momentum and make you think outside the box. The puzzles are mostly not challenging, but more like movement exercises, and i don't mind doing them. Overall, a masterpiece ✨️
Yeah, I don't mind the reusing of level layouts as the new movement makes it feel different. I similarly don't mind the koco quests, with most being optional, as long as they're not too annoying or pacebreaking. The worst part is probably the pinball minigame or the laser puzzle or the crane task. Cyberspace looks exactly like Generations, but I do like how they at least added the digital effect to make it feel new. Also, I like the presentation. I think the animations are quite good in general, better than in previous games, and I don't mind the realistic artstyle. While it's a triple A game, I do wish there were some CGI cutscenes, but that's probably because of the day-night system, so everything runs in real-time.
As I said before, I really liked Frontiers, and it was almost perfect. In my opinion, it can only get better, not worse. Forces, while I think it's very overhated, and I kinda like it, I also find it kinda hard to defend, and I feel it was the dip in budget and quality and passion, it terms of both gameplay, design, story, and presentation, even though I don't think it's souless or lazy like many say. Frontiers, to me, felt like a high budget game, even though some corners were clearly cut. Not to be a blatant hater, but I don't think we'll ever return to that dip of content in the 2010s, as while I think saying it was the definition of mediocrity is a bit harsh, I don't think you could get worse than that. The next mainline game might not always be better than the last, but at least it won't ever be of that quality, let alone worse. Frontiers might have been great, but it can only get better, and that's hard to imagine!
What I want is for an adventure like game but it has the unleashed hubworlds and adventure fields. I want hubworlds with characters, the actual towns. Then I want an area off the the hubworld where you enter the open zone and then from there can find the levels, but you do the levels in order like in unleashed.
Ngl The IDW Appreciation Is absolutely amazing Love that shit to my Core
The Archie run was too daunting for me to get into But the Idw run always makes me smile. Every single comic has such good world building that makes this world feel so real
Couldn’t agree more, games really gotta tap into that.
11:36 he is literally kicking so hard it sends shock waves read the description of the attack my dog😭
ik what is supposed to be but it LOOKS like he's just shooting random energy blasts. That and the version where he just holds his hands out and those same blasts come out of his palms. Or the one where he creates a bunch of spinballs out of nothing.
@@Romanode_ bruh your just being lame now, let sonic do badass things
@@Therealones745he can be badass w out being generic
@@Romanode_ how is that generic?
@@Romanode_ lmao no..
Great video! Frontiers truly became one of my favorite Sonic games
However, here are some things I was waiting for, but probably will never ever get:
- An exclusive transformation. I thought all those titan fights in Super Sonic form would escalate for the final boss with a brand new transformation that would be totally different from Super Sonic. I'm waiting for that since Excalibur Sonic in Black Knight. Honestly, I'm sick of Super Sonic everytime. I want something new. However I'm still loving the initial idea of Sage and Super Sonic teaming up and that final boss gameplay.
- Main protagonists should be the 06's legendary trio: Sonic, Shadow AND SILVER! I'm still salty this game was framing the 3 hedgehogs would be the most important and prominent characters of the franchise only to ditch that idea. Please, bring back my boy Silver! Just imagine if you would have played Frontiers with those 3. Each one of them would have completed an island, have their own adventure, have their own skill list, have a Titan fight with their super form, and at the end, their path would finally cross and they would have to team up to beat the final boss.
- A good and more present villain/antagonist. Unfortunatly, The END was absent the entire game and popped out of nowhere at the end so it didn't feel engaging imo. Mephiles in 06 was great! Well, at least, we didn't have Eggman as the main villain AGAIN.
- Long, rich and stunning stages like we had in Unleashed (day stages) and Generations. Cyberspace stages were on the right path but way too short and lackluster.
- Fights between characters. With all these combat skills each characters have, just imagine if they would fight each other. Sonic Battle was one of my all time favourite Sonic game and when I saw how Sonic could fight in Frontiers, it made me think of it. We could even have a game exclusively for that. A new Sonic Battle type of game where we would get that kind of fight.
Fellow Sonic fans, what do you think? Did I forget something?
I'm not into Open zone games in Sonic games, but I'll have to get used to it, since it's was pretty good. I'm just used to by Sonic games in normal ones, like Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Generations, and Sonic Forces.
Nice video man you just got a new sub ! :)
Thank you!
9:46 Nahh this shit went hard the final transition was funny as hell too
4:24 О! Дизайн открытых зон! Выглядит не очень длинным.
...
9:43 О-О... Бро, это были одни из самых длинных, насыщенные и двигаюшиеся в правильную сторону мысли, 5 минут, которые я когда-либл видел по геймдизайну в Сонике.
You have a really nice voice bro. I don’t want rolling to be like sonic gt/rollin rascal though. I’d rather it just be the adventure spindash again
lol thanks, and yeah I prolly wouldn’t go that far w the rolling either.
I don't know about anyone else but spider especially the final horizon remix was my fav music for fighting an enemy in the whole game. Not gameplay wise just music wise.
what people say about Sonic movement is that:
''If you make the characters too fast he will fell bad to control so you have to balance their speed to NOT be so fast and NOT so slow"
well, I have a way to fix that,
So the reason why it feels bad to move slow on sonic boosting games is something called steering sensitivity
it makes the sensitivity of turning very low on boosting games but if you put a way too high steering sensitivity you will feel to slippery to move fast making things very hard to move around at high speeds
so to fix that I would make something that I call: progressive steering sensitivity
which makes the sensitivity slightly lower as you pick up speed
and I would also add the abiltity to reach ridiculous speeds but with the difficulty of picking up that speed
so if you take sonic adventure you can see that sonic has a max speed that he can reach but what if there was a Sonic that can reach insane speeds like the boost games but with the need of an insane amount of momentum
Personally, I would really love for them to not only remove stat levelling, but also remove Exp and the Skill Tree in general. It just... never felt very Sonic to me?
Just start us off with a mostly complete moveset, and then hide several upgrades in each open zone for us to find, kinda like the Adventure games. These could be movement-based (stuff like the Light Speed Dash, Drop Dash, Cyloop and Bounce Bracelet) or combat-based, but just reward us for moving around and exploring, don't tie progression to what everyone else in the industry does, tie it to something that _feels_ distinctly Sonic.
mmmm that could be a good incentive for exploration, but then what’s the point of combat if you don’t need skill points for a skill tree?
@@Romanode_ That's a good question. Personally I'm not huge on combat with the regular enemies in Frontiers (hence why I actually really liked when the Final Horizon only had enemies as an aid or obstacle for platforming, or as part of one of the tower trials), so I wouldn't mind if they mostly got rid of small-fry enemies, or used them more as platforming aids, small obstacles or enemies you bop into once to kill them and keep the flow going.
Though I think the combat with the regular bosses/guardians was pretty good. I think even the biggest fans of Frontiers' combat usually talk about Guardian and Titan fights anyways. The obvious reward from those right now is Portal Gears, which I think is a good reward and should probably be kept.
Alternatively, I'd be down to see them hide movement upgrades in the open zone, but keep combat upgrades in a skill tree with exp. I think that probably makes the most sense if combat remains an integral part of the game.
I definitely don't think Sonic should have an Attack and Defense stat you can upgrade (and arguably a speed stat as well, but for different reasons). It kinda messed with the way Frontiers' difficulty progressed, and makes the late-game a complete cakewalk way too easily. I think keeping Ring Capacity upgrades is probably a good idea though, and attaching those to combat exp might work pretty well. Alternatively, if the skill tree were to be drastically expanded, sticking about 5 Ring Capacity upgrades that let you have maybe 100 more rings in there could work, though the skill tree really does need to be significantly larger for it to not feel like half the tree is just rings.
I'm not a professional game designer, I'm mostly just rambling about my preferences so it's easy for me to forget how changing one thing impacts other systems and aspects of a game. In general though, even if they kept the combat & upgrades exactly the same as it was in Frontiers, I would be mostly happy. The game was fun enough as is, and I think the most important aspects to improve on would definitely be the world design and platforming sections, as those are the main things most people will be spending the most time on, as well as the animation quality both during gameplay and cutscenes.
Here are some of my ideas for a new open zone sonic game:
-Have the platforming challenges be optional. Sonic could run to pedestals around the map and make the platforms and rails appear, and when he uses them again, they disappear. This would make the islands look a lot better during standard gameplay.
-Give Sonic momentum while running
-Larger open zones
-Lots more biomes (snow, jungle, tropical, stuff like that)
-Toggleable Super Sonic transformation when you 100% the game
- More recognizable landmarks and set pieces than the ones we got in Frontiers.
-Deeper combat system
What would you guys want in the next open zone Sonic game?
Idk about having optional platforming challenges. A lot of the fun came from seamlessly launching from one platforming section to the next. Making them optional would highlight how same-y they all feel, without the freedom to chain them together and use them to your advantage. Making us tackle one at a time would prolly ruin that part of the game for me.
I like the idea of Super Sonic in the Open Zone tho, that'd be sick.
9:17 i'm getting *Spider-Man PS4 vibes...*
lol that’s where I got it from, haven’t played it yet but I like the idea of a radio station you can tap into while exploring.
@@Romanode_ it's a brilliant idea
I was hoping you'd talk about the Cyberspace levels that are exclusive to Update 3, since it featured the most open 3D levels I've seen in a long, long time. What do you think about those?
i was mixed on it, I didn’t fw a lot of the gimmicks but I liked the creative use of the spindash in the level design, moveable camera, and level length. I’d say they’re a step in the right direction.
an IDW game would be awesome especially if its about the metal virus that was peak but anything could work it has so much going for it we need atleast one game
11:27 i mean...is it a bad thing he has electric aura around him and shoot energy waves?? I thought it was cool plus i really wished sonic could have a move like this just like shadow throwing chaos spears i wanted sonic to have something similar which here it is... the sonic boom attack aka the energy wave blasts so i would consider this an upgrade for sonic it just made him stronger
This may be a hot take, but I kinda wish they would just STOP trying to add more lore to the Chaos Emeralds. Its okay if they're there, but they don't need to be deeply tied in with the lore of the story itself...
Like, the Chaos Emeralds are connected to the Master Emerald. They're tied to the planet and are a key part of Light and Dark Gaia's cycle. They're connected to the ancient Echidna race. They're connected to Chaos and the Chao. And on top of all that, they're SOMEHOW FROM SPACE BROUGHT TO THE PLANET BY ALIENS. How??? I thought they were directly tied to the planet itself? Are they from space or are they not?
We don't need more conflicting and "deep" lore for the Emeralds. They're magical super-powered rocks, what more do we need to know? Half the stories in the franchise just constantly revolve around them. The Meta Era sucked, but one thing I liked about them is that they were actually able to take a break from the Chaos Emeralds for once.
So cool
Honestly I’d like to see the guerrilla warfare/freedom fighter but come back from forces and maybe bring back the custom characters as a treat
Honestly the wispons too, the designs were really neat
I want a playable mecha sonic
That’s it that’s all i need to be satisfied
Theres a ROBLOX game called pyrite adventure that is getting a 3rd entry soon, and it is, obviously, heavily based on the adventure games. The new one will be based on SA2, and the mech stages are much faster. Like the speed of knuckles in adventure with a gun. They should do something like that
Wish the game felt like gens/unleashed in cyberspace
Hate to say it but Sega hire this man!!!
For part 5, you basically described the Metarex low-key 😅
lol I took direct inspiration from that, if the footage wasn’t such low quality I woulda used Sonic X clips to illustrate the idea
Pixar Smash Bros part 3 is coming out in November this year
source?? 😭
@@Romanode_ Pleaee
@@joshuacampos7970Something Pixar related is in the works 👀
@@Romanode_ I hope it's Pixar Smash Bros part 3 which is going to be the last installment, and I would love to see.
i would love to see to see sonic’s character model from unleashed or generations make a return. i feel like the forces model doesn’t fit in with the open zone feeling they’re trying to portray, and i just really don’t like it. i would also love to see more cgi cutscenes, as the intro for unleashed is still to this day the best looking a sonic game has ever looked.
I feel like we’ve reached the point where the in-game cutscenes could look about as good as those CGI cutscenes. Again look at sumn like rift apart, with the right animation budget they could definitely reach that level.
Tbh I feel like if i was at sega id make a cool sonic game
i'd prolly get fired after a day cus i don't know the first thing about managing a team of developers.
Absolutely nailed it on the gameplay side of things, though I think combat needs to implement proper combos and a ranking system similar to DMC.
But for the music, yeah ima need Ohtani to drop the EDM already. Keep the metalcore tho.
And storywise, major improvements are needed. Frontiers' story is so lifeless and bland, and its characters don't leave any impression. Not helped by the animation, dialogue and voice acting. Ideally I'd have a new Sonic VA, cause it's kinda telling that Roger needs to basically stop sounding like Sonic in order to sound natural.
I don’t hate people wanting momentum, I just hate when people get MOMENTUM mixed up with SLOPE PHYSICS
are slope physics not incorporating momentum tho
There characters are "kind" of boring in frontiers since they are arguably have been through worse story wise with them killing the god of time and seeing the world fracture in unleashed, but they never changed their personality when it happed, unleashed and generations in particular are kind of my lynch pin points since generation has a similar setup to frontiers with sonic needing to save his friends and explore different levels to do it but he doesn't act overly worried. them being one note isn't great but there is a reason they are one note.
knuckle's strength leads into his character of being protective and being a guardian along with the fact that he is forced to isolate himself to do his job, so he is less adapted to modern things or other people, but he is also very honorable.
Sonic is laid back and chill and looking for his next thrill and does right when he sees something is wrong. Even in generations where I don't think he was written to be emotionally aware; his priority was to still save his friends even if he wasn't constantly talking about them.
Amy: sees sonic as his hero and idol and because of that it gets her to push past her comfort zone and do more exciting things from helping to defeat the god of destruction to saving the earth from a crashing spaceship. There was already more past her being a fan girl since she is just a more caring person in general compared to sonic or knuckles, on one hand I can see how it's annoying but there is a reason she became popular in the first place and her being more somber takes away from that? especially with her voice not being energetic and this isn't a realization she comes too. like when she first saw sonic on the island, she didn't run to him and then phased and did it over and over until she started to realize the gravity of the situation and become less cheery. We assume she just understands this the moment she enters the island. when she has arguably been through worse.
Tail: I don't really have any complaints I thought his Insite on the ancient's technology was nice and was probably the had most interesting interactions in the game besides Eggman and sage. But I think his tech use has been underutilized as a character.
There characterization is not bad but is definitely lacking and I hope that they bring back their more expressive personalities. Dream team and murder of sonic the hedgehog are on the right track and I hope they are kept in mind when continuing the story epically the visual novel since it was advertised with frontiers so the people that got it really care about the characters and story
Your not the only one... Leave the lighting to Barry Allen. I liked it more when Sonic just had a flashy mach cone that gusted like the wind...
Agree with pretty much all of this, plus of minus a couple things, felt like adding on to it.
So one issue I've noticed is how confused the moment to moment pacing is, specifically when it comes to traversal/platforming and combat. In terms of how they affect the pacing of the game, they're in complete conflict with each other. Traversal requires that you make good use of your movement options and the terrain to get from place to place, you want to constantly be finding ways to get air time with ramps and clever use of the environment, there's a real flow to it, and it's actively in the best interest of that flow to AVOID fighting. Forgetting about the shallowness of combat for a second, even pretending it's on par with the actual best games in that sort of style (Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Rising, Bayonetta, etc.), engaging in combat intrinsically means you've stopped the traversal/platforming gameplay, and vice versa. If all you wanna do is fight, being intrinsically encouraged by the other side of gameplay to avoid combat is counterproductive, and interrupts that flow too. There's no cohesion. In the older games on the other hand, take SA1 and SA2, combat was a PART of platforming. Enemies, as is standard for platformers, mostly exist as an extension of platforming itself, functioning as variations on platforms with homing chains, and something like spike traps with enemies littering levels. There's ONE set of singularly focused movement mechanics that get recontextualized in the face of enemies. The homing attack is the single concession to combat in that game, and it also serves to make certain elements of movement easier. Homing in on items and springs, or as a short air dash in situations that call for it.
But on the OTHER hand, you can't have the spectacle of the Titan fights without a somewhat more complex combat system. Personally, as much as I love them, I think we lose more by having the game design's focus split to accommodate the combat than we gain without it, but that's neither here nor there. Combat's not going anywhere so how do we make it so that it doesn't break movement flow and vice versa? Well I think for one, the homing attack needs to be WAY faster. Stopping in place every time you do it feels AWFUL. One thing I think might work is for Sonic's speed to affect combat. Maybe if you're going fast enough, you can pull enemies with you after an attack, so you can keep a combo going even if you're blasting through an area. Maybe enemies could be designed to chase and keep up with you if you start a combo chain like that, so you're not getting hounded by them all the time, but you can still fight with groups of enemies on the move.
There's also the matter of art direction. As things stand, nothing is very "Sonic" and I'm not just talking about level aesthetics, I'm talking about EVERYTHING. Sonic was designed by 3 artists, Naoto Ohshima, Yuji Uekawa, and Satoshi Okano, the latter of whom is responsible for the twisty, noodliness of the Adventure era box art, alongside Uekawa. These are the artists that made the character and his world, and their visual styles should hold the greatest influence on Sonic's art direction as a result, but they don't Most of Sonic's looks come from Pixar, because most of Sonic's current looks come from Unleashed which is most influenced by Pixar. Unleashed is a GORGEOUS game, but it's a gorgeous game that doesn't look very much like Sonic. Sonic CD's intro, the OVA, Sonic Battle, Sonic Riders, these are all things that directly reference the visual styles of Sonic's creators while having their own identity and as a result, all look like Sonic. Same thing with Mania it looks like the classic games artistically because it references them artistically.
I have some minor critiques about characterization too, specifically with Sonic and Amy. Post MoSTH, there's been a lot of discussion in the community about Amy's lack of "fire", how she doesn't have the same bubbly energy (sans the Sonic stalking) that used to define her. She's mellowed out, and there doesn't seem to be a good canon justification like there is for Tails' short lived growth from SA1 to 06, she's just different now. Sonic's issues are more important though, namely that he's too nice and patient. Sonic became a household name by being an impatient, cocky delinquent who'd actively give the player shit for wasting his time and making him stand around doing nothing. He made his frustration and general annoyance known, and he wasn't usually nice or "soft spoken" about it. Like, if you don't move for a few minutes in Sonic CD, he won't just impatiently tap his foot, HE'LL LEAVE, and he'll cost you a life. Sonic, written accurately, is abrasive, he's a punk teenager with a heart of gold. Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakushou is the character I've seen him compared to best, and it's a good fit. We only see glimpses of that guy in Frontiers (though this whole thing is part of a larger problem with Sonic nowadays, not just in Frontiers) with "Careful? Where's the fun in that?" and "Sometimes it's a spinning sign, sometimes it's a big ol' ring" but those are just moments, when what I'm describing should make up the bulk of Sonic's outward personality. Also, and this might be contentious to say, but it's not said with any malice, but Sonic needs a new English voice. Roger's performance was great in Frontiers all things considered, but his voice is just too naturally deep to suit the character. Sonic's voice needs to be higher and growlier to sound like Sonic, for the same reason you need a deep, James Earl Jones-esque voice for a character to really sound like Darth Vader. You wouldn't hire a Micheal Cera or Tom Holland to play Vader, or you're not gonna find him intimidating and cool in the same way. Like, you could do it, and they're capable actors so they could at least get the personality down, but it would still negatively impact your perception of the character.
Cast Roger as Shadow or Knuckles, he's great at deeper, whisperier voices. Someone more akin to Junichi Kanemaru, Ryan Drummond, or Jason Griffith. If it were up to me, Max Mittleman would've been voicing the character ages ago.
Also, broadly speaking, they really need to avoid answering so many big lore questions so explicitly. We do not need to actually know the Chaos Emeralds' origin story, they're more meaningful the less you know about how they were made and by who. I appreciate the lore answers to some things, but like with horror, leaving things to the imagination is much more powerful than just answering all the questions.
First of all, thanks for taking the time to comment all of this. I agree w the art-style thing but idk about the characterization. To me Frontiers Sonic is what happens when you take that cocky, snarky persona from the 90's and 2000's and age him up a lil bit. Like you said elements of that character are still in there, but this is a more mature version of the character, I personally don't mind the change as long as they don't completely strip what makes Sonic Sonic. If it were up to me they would have never recast Jason Griffith, his work in Black Knight was perfect. But Rogers work in Frontiers has been my favorite direction for the character since he was recast 15 yrs ago.
I don't think we ever need to learn how the chaos emeralds were made or why, but i'd be interested in learning more of their history and the different factions attached to it. Their story should be the glue that holds these next few games together.
Again thanks for commenting, I love hearing everyone's opinions on this stuff.
@@Romanode_ See, my thinking with Sonic's characterization is that he SHOULDN'T mature. Part of what made Sonic great is that his personality was really brazen and juvenile, and like with Amy, mellowing that out to have him be more level headed makes him less interesting. It removes some of his more interesting flaws like how he responds to impatience and kind of softens up his snark.
Like I said, MINOR critique, it's not ruinous or anything, Sonic is still mostly recognizable as Sonic, character wise, but I don't think it goes far enough. It's one of those things that you don't notice until you notice, and when you do, it's hard not to. and it extends to IDW, Prime, and the movies too to varying degrees. It just feels like he's missing something, and that "something" is the full extent of his "attitude".
Like, ok, we talk about Sonic being cocky and sassy, and that's all fine and good, and it's true, but there's more to it. That's just the surface of it. The example I like to use when talking about this is his idle animation in Sonic 1, because that's the first, most iconic instance of Sonic's personality and what made him an icon. People see him doing that and think it's just him being cheeky with the player. Sonic taps his foot because tapping his foot is what Sonic DOES, in their minds. He does it in modern games because that's what he did in the old games.
But that animation in Sonic 1 wasn't a reference to anything, Sonic was just getting pissed off at the player for making him wait, it was a genuine expression of emotion, of irritation borne from Sonic's underlying impatience. And again, some of that IS in Frontiers, you can see it during Amy's Koco quest, when he's itching to move on and save them from Cyberspace, but more often he's being the mature, patient, understanding one. The lack of some thrill seeking excitement chasing makes sense given the somber tone, but Sonic from the beginning was kind of a punk (in the literal sense of the term). An anti authoritarian, rude, cocky, rebellious, competitive, thrill seeking delinquent teenager with no patience, a smart mouth and a sharp tongue, with a heart of gold and wisdom beyond his years.
He doesn't need to sass to demonstrate that part of his personality, if that makes sense. Tapping his foot and spouting one liners are more external things, but the internal element, the emotional core of those behaviors is part of what's lacking. Sonic doesn't feel like the kind of guy who'd throw a brick at a cop car and spray paint their windshield for bothering his friends , or just because he doesn't like cops, anymore, he's missing some of that delinquent, counterculture edge.
Now, a LOT of the problem comes from how Sonic is animated. Just animating him to get bored with a long bit of exposition, laying down and closing his eyes and visibly tuning out would go a much longer way than relying on dialogue to tell you he's running out of patience. It's a long running problem, but Sonic games need to go back to the drawing board with their character animation. So much standing around talking, with maybe a couple basic poses to add some character. For the issues I have with Roger playing Sonic (I liked his performance in Frontiers, but the issue is the insurmountable depth of his voice, a limitation he can't overcome without compromise, it was his acting chops alone that made him work in that game, not his voice), I think they'd be much less pronounced with better, completely overhauled character animation so we could SEE Sonic acting like Sonic, instead of just having to HEAR it.
Again, it doesn't RUIN anything, I'm phrasing these as problems but this is more a "Things are good, but this is how I think they could be improved" kinda sentiment. Me being kind of a perfectionist and not willing to be satisfied with good enough, or even GREAT, is admittedly part of it.
It's all giant steps forward, we're miles closer to Sonic's golden age than we've been in decades, but on basically ANY level, I don't think we're there yet...Besides the music anyway...and Knuckles, change nothing about how he's being characterized.
I see where you’re coming from, we can both agree that the character animation needs lot of work.
What do you think of the little we saw from Shadow Generations’ character animation?
@@Romanode_ It looks better. Not as much as I'd like, but this is a tie in to a remake/re-release, so the time/budget probably isn't all there compared to a full release. For the level of animation I'd say the series needs, every character model needs to be fully overhauled and replaced with ones that are properly designed and rigged to squash & stretch and exaggerate posing. Sonic's stories are shounen battle/adventure (when not handled by wannabe saturday morning cartoon, hack writers), but the character designs are pure Mickey Mouse, 1930s-1940s rubber hose animation. Those poses need to be stretched and warped to the extreme to bring out the most of character emotions and acting, and lots more needs to be done in the latter acting department. Characters need to do much more than just stand, walk, run, and talk, they need the full range of behaviors to get the most out of body language. Also, facial animation needs an overhaul too. Dream Team was a step forward, but it still doesn't push facial expressions to the degree the rubber hose cartoon designs demand.
Jank as they are Sonic Adventure's facial animations done right are the goal here. Warping and stretching the shapes of the facial anatomy like a cartoon character making anime expressions is the ideal. The tech and techniques weren''t there yet in 3D, but like, look at images of the jank SA1 cutscene expressions and compare them to Frontiers'. Frontiers goes much further than anything since the Unleashed opening for 3D Sonic, but there's just no comparison in terms of expressive range. So much so that the movie models are actually more similar to SA1 than the modern stuff. None of the "Side mouth, front mouth" debate, they rightly treat Sonic's muzzle like cheek muscles and stretch and reshape it like they would for any other kind of character.
But in terms of like, action animation? Sonic X Shadow Gens already looks miles ahead of even Frontiers, everything looks so much more fluid and alive.
Couldn’t agree more
dude just used the season 3 plot for sonic x
lol i def took some inspiration from the metarex saga, it’s a cool concept tho.
The story didn’t have any thought besides. Plaster references everywhere and ruin Sonic and Amy. With this goofy “I wanna share my love with the world” stuff. What does that mean first of all and wasn’t that what Amy was already doing? And then the story is so melancholic for LITERALLY NO REASON! “Oh No Amy… I’ll save you” with his deep ass basic ahh human adventurer roger voice with no energy at all. Then Amy says something along the lines of “I’m not a damsel in distress anymore” when she’s literally only been one in like two games. Knuckles wants to be more free from his job of guarding the master emerald. When he’s already been ignoring his job multiple times. Sure he usually doesn’t see Sonic and pals in months but we cant act like he hasn’t been doing this.
9:04 "FIRST OF ALL, YOUR JORDANS ARE COMPLETELY FAKE"
Longer quil sonic
When next Pixar Smash Bros part 3 with 6 characters coming out
fr
Now all SEGA needs to do is follow through by giving a Sonic Team a massive budget and hire a lot of new employees to work on the next game so they have more manpower.
I have no doubt they're going into this next game with a much bigger budget, you can already see some of that in Shadow Generations.
If you followed the sonic news they already did like 1 or 2 years ago I believe? Yeah..
Frontiers was too afraid to be a good game
It as so many flaws
Still retains the problems of the adventures series that keeps plaguing the series over and over again
Lack of cgi custcenes
The game is not polished
The game is replayable so easily wth MODS only
Is dull , kinda bland
Stiff uglier character model
Copy n pasted assets from forces
Non original levels .
Pretty trash forgettable music exept "im here"
Final horizon update mzde the game alot bad
Custcenes arent good anymore unlike the 2000s
Repetitive gameplay and bland boring levels , poorly designed mechanics and
The story is good but could be executed alot properly if it wasnt for ian wth his sometimes annoying references that barely helps the plot .
But frontiers is hopeful its a step in the right direction , despite the many dissapointments this game brought .