I bought Sonic Frontiers yesterday. I don’t know why, I thought it seemed interesting. Anyways I’m two hours in and so far I think it kinda sucks. It’s so unpolished and feels very cheap. My least favorite thing about it is the visuals and the music. It feels like it takes place in the movie Annihilation or something. Even the “normal” Sonic levels feel weirdly creepy and sad. Also why does Sonic sound like he’s 40 years old? Also the level design is ridiculous, it just feels like there’s random stuff everywhere. I feel like kind of a sucker for buying this game for $60. But I do like the fact that Big the Cat is in it.
You’re describing every Sonic release.
Lots of people will keep saying it was good until the next announcement at which point they’ll admit that it was bad but the new one actually looks good
nah, there are plenty of good sonic games, even if there aren’t many great ones, and frankly I find the “sonic bad” conversations to be significantly more boring than any sonic game I’ve actually played lmfao
and this is coming from someone who has basically zero nostalgia for the franchise.
That’s fair, I don’t enjoy any of them myself
You have to understand, it’s sonic fans claiming its a good game. They’ve been left starving for something actually fun for so long that their standards couldn’t really get any lower.
The fact they did something new while also creating a game that some sonic fans find fun is astonishing.
It certainly wasn’t incredible, but for Sonic a 6-7/10 is basically a 9/10 to hardcore Sonic fans. That’s okay, and it means the game inherently isn’t for everyone. It’s got lots of issues, but I think if you can look past the surface level details it has a lot that it does right too.
It’s definitely, from the position of a jaded fan who tried it after years of ignoring (and occasionally playing because they’re so bad) Sonic releases because of the poor quality, the best release in a long time.
sonic frontiers is the perfect game for people with ADHD (it’s me I’m people) some shit’s happening every other second or there’s somewhere to go run and look at. it’s fine for what it is IMO. Maybe not at full price but eh. Also the music slaps, unless you’re talking about the overworld. Break Through it All is one of my most played songs last year lmao
the writing is good too, given ian flynn has a hand in it. it’s nothing mind-blowing but I didn’t skip the cutscenes, which I do in. uh. most sonic games.
It’s a very uneven game (some 9/10 “this is cool!” gameplay loops bundled together with some 3/10 “how did this ever get released?” segments) and definitely not for everybody. The object pop-ins were noticeable, the sudden 2D-perspective-locks on later islands were worse, and it took me a while to really find a groove and get into the game, but once I did I had a great time with it.
If you want to continue playing, I recommend hunting down and completing all the “?” map challenges (edit: or just a lot of them, because some might not be reachable yet for story reasons) before working on other objectives. Some of them are designed to train necessary but non-obvious skills, and having a full map makes it a lot easier to get around and pick your battles.
Also, starfall events give you so many fishing tokens that Big’s fishing minigame becomes the single best way to gather resources and level up. It’s totally gamebreaking but it’s Big the Cat so it’s great.
It feels like it takes place in the movie Annihilation …
You just reminded me how awesome that film is. Need to watch it again.
It had that hugely negative buzz when it premiered because it looked so empty and boring. All the iconic music gone and replaced with ambient sounding music.
Then it seems like the fanbase jumped on the negativity to try and counter it, because as soon as the demo was released, there was a bunch of praise for the game.
But I was just over here looking at it thinking, nah, this still looks as bland and empty as the trailers. Like what the heck?
I like it (am Sonic fan, so disclaimer there) but to call it uneven would be a massive understatement. I’ve had plenty of times in my time playing it where I was awed and thought “This is how a Sonic game should play!” just to immediately be wrenched into “How the hell did this get past testing?” or “How did Sega think that something so unpolished was good to release now?”
It needed more time in the oven, like most Sonic games, and it probably needed some fresh faces who grew up playing the games and know what they want out of the series to inject some more interesting things in. As someone who meets that description, Ian Flynn was good to have as a writer, even if I’d say he didn’t do perfectly (some of the flashbacks were incredibly clumsy, for example). It’s not the best game in the series, and maybe not even an excellent one, but I think it’s decent for what it is.