SONIC FRONTIERS INFORMATION/MY THOUGHTS
i'm VERY excited for sonic frontiers! after 6 months of basically nothing, now turning into an entire month dedicated to a game coming out this holiday season (so, like, between nov and dec.) i wanna put in how i feel about the game thus far!
SPOILERS BELOW. SPOILERS BELOW. SPOILERS BELOW.
i will be talking about the new information we got today.
so after what felt like a millennia, we at least got SOME information on what frontiers' story is kind of going to be like. it was mentioned today on the IGN First preview thing on the game. and it isn't much, but it does pique my interest for what's to come!
"[...] After flying into a wormhole with Tails and Amy, Sonic finds himself separated from his friends and all alone on an isolated island, with nothing but an AI voice guiding him to collect the Chaos Emeralds."
i'll talk about the emeralds further below, and the characters after this section. but knowing that sonic is stranded all alone on this island gives me the chills. it's not the first time sonic has to do things on his own, but the fact that its on a mysterious island filled with dangerous robots just sends shivers up and down my spine. it feels different this time. and i seriously hope maybe we'll see those feelings come through to sonic, even if only a little bit. but so far, everything feels so goddamn gorgeous.
not even with just the overworld, but how the story is described. it's beautiful. it's mysterious. it's this sense of coldness, and with how the game looks, it truly does feel like sonic is all by himself. no friends to help him fight, and especially not tails to really give him any information. here's hoping where this goes!
given the way they told us about a section of the plot, it seems like once again, amy and tails might not be playable after all. so i wonder what they're going to be up to throughout the story! i'm hoping we at least get something, instead of them just. being helpless without sonic like a lot of the games have been doing this last decade. or they can at least kick some ass in some cutscenes.
given the structure of the overworld, i don't see them really being playable. sure, the other characters can use bouncers, rails, boostpads, etc, but the thing about playing as the different sonic characters is how unique they are in their own sections. on top of that, sonic is getting a skill tree (more on that way below!), and i don't think there would be enough room for everyone to have one.
unpopular opinion i think, but focusing on only sonic in this game is very important. they should get him right first before reintroducing other characters into gameplay.
anyway, we got a prologue as well, where we see knuckles! though it would be obvious that the core cast of these little guys would be sonic, tails, amy, and knuckles. they've had this group dynamic especially when sonic boom came around. i guess it makes sense why only a few characters would show up. wormholes can only pick up so many people! it would be a heavy coincidence seeing shadow, silver, rouge, blaze, the chaotix, etc.
so i'm sure at least one of you on reading this has seen my A.I roleplay character (which i should...rEALLY get back to-) based on the rumours that were going around about the A.I voice in sonic frontiers. and for a while, a lot of people thought it was going to be amy, especially after seeing the trailer's subtitles and a deleted japanese tweet.
but after today, it seems like the A.I voice is a different character entirely! and i'm very happy to see that.
will she give you hints on some of the stuff in the game, much like chip from unleashed? will she tell you what this island once was and what it was like? why does she want to help sonic? how can she speak within his mind? who even is she? who made her? the island has advanced technology, maybe she's an A.I from a lost civilization?
that tech didn't form naturally. it says the island was isolated, who lived there? did she even live there? is she like nicole the lynx where her consciousness was inserted into a computer or something? was she made by eggman? did she split off from a rogue A.I? WHO KNOWS. hope we find out!
sadly, i don't think she'll be appearing in other games (here's hoping sonic games from here on out have structured continuity and not just being a semi reset every time?), but i only hope when the credits roll, she's just as in-depth and complex as merlina and sharha in their respective games from the storybook series. AND HOPEFULLY NOT ANOTHER DOUBLE CROSSER.
IT'S JUST LIKE UNLEASHED! sonic frontiers has been confirmed today to have a skill tree. which means the skills that we see in the trailer aren't going to be the only ones in the game. they were probably showing off the ones you can get super early on. because seriously, i doubt they were showing us how maxed out he is. that would be dumb lmao.
but it makes me so happy to see that there's so much combo splicing you can do, which is one of my favorite parts of video games. can't wait to see the thousands of videos of the different techniques you can use and get like 100 combos or whatever haha. but yeah! it was one of my worries when i first saw the combat trailer because for a moment, i thought that was it! but i guess it makes sense why they would add a skill tree in this game, because the more it goes on, the more repetitive it can get seeing the same few moves, even if they do look flashy for the first few times.
OKAY so it was pretty brief, but we might have gotten information on cyberspace? not really much to go off of except that there will be linear 3d sonic levels. which definitely means that it would be the cyberspace levels that everyone has kind of been talking about. the flow of the game, from what it seems like, is said by Mitchell Saltzman, quoted...
"The flow of the game is basically: Explore open world > solve puzzles to open up map > fight world bosses to earn portal gears > use portal gears to unlock linear Sonic levels > complete linear Sonic levels to unlock chaos emeralds."
(hopefully this doesn't mean the game isn't as repetitive as it sounds!)
so defeating bosses means you get portal gears to go into linear sonic stages, also known as cyberspace (MAYBE.). i can see these working like those portals in the classic sonic games where you can get the chaos emeralds through there. and i can see them being just as brief as well, maybe! i just hope it doesn't look like a recolor of null space from sonic forces or whatever.
but i'm okay with it being linear and bright and clunky in terms of colors! it's a digitized space, after all. maybe we can even physically see the A.I lady there? or is this how we can save sonic's friends? (it wasn't ever said, but that could be spoiler territory haha.)
i'm hopeful this will be good! it isn't much but as a lover for computers, especially retro computer stuff, i'm invested. it would be a nice break from all the beautiful, lush open spaced areas in the island overworld. the contrast is wondrous.
THE MASTER EMERALD AND THE CHAOS EMERALDS (& KNUCKLES)
SO it was only mentioned once or twice (the chaos emeralds), and shown on screen for like 7 seconds (the master emerald), but i'm so happy to see that the emeralds themselves are relevant again! it's felt like such a long time since we have seen knuckles even chilling around the master emerald itself on angel island, which is his job. he was just standing there and yet it was just enough for me to feel happy about the inclusion of these dumb magical rocks.
what role does the master emerald have in the story? will tikal be relevant again? honestly, who knows! maybe it won't be much, and maybe the focus is more on knuckles than anything. but even then, cool! from the way he looks, i'm praying sega is definitely getting back to his roots and seriousness as a character. (which they did in forces, though i meant like. his base character, not just the leader of the resistance. i LOVED him in sonic 2, here's hoping some of that characterization carries on to the games.)
and of course, the chaos emeralds are back in full story focus! they haven't been front and center in so long that i have forgotten their existence a few times...now we all know sonic is going to turn super in the end, the emeralds and super go hand in hand literally all the time. and it's been even longer since we've had a real super sonic climax for the final boss!
someone dug into the files of frontiers’ videos, and that giant robot from the trailer (and in the IGN first combat gameplay) is now officially named asura, a name that has indic/japanese roots. it translates into a few words like "titan", "demigod", and "antigod." so the name of it of course makes sense given the massive size of the thing, and well, it's malevolent nature. defeating it looks like so much fun, honestly! (and the calm music playing during the IGN first is definitely not gonna be there in the final game, i assure you. get an orchestra or something in on this!)
given the name, i am hoping that we will get some more ancient religion references in this game...i always loved that about sonic anyways. let this blue fucker fight a GOD by the end of this all.
personally, i don't care for the complaints this game has. 95% of them are from either youtube or twitter, which we all know has some of the most toxic places on the entire surface internet. i guarantee that there's someone out there right now complaining about what we got today. just keep in mind that the negative voices are always going to be the loudest, but you shouldn't let them change how you feel about the game.
dude in the video mentioned that there's no Crush 40, so i hope this is either a cop out attempt, or maybe we'll get an interesting soundtrack without them! the peaceful music so far is addicting and pretty, but i'm hoping we get an actual main theme for the game. which most likely we will, because every sonic game has it (which helps a lot of the games stand out.) i just hope it isn't underwhelming (COUGHS greenlightgo COUGHS)
i am also hoping the game has some replayability, as in, some post game content! it's a huge world, and there are so many places to go. secret bosses, secret missions, maybe even secret skins or outfits? maxing out sonic so he can OHK every enemy? please!
so far, i am beyond astonished and happy with how sonic frontiers looks. even when it was just a teaser around this time last year, i was hyped. and the game awards trailer only made me even more excited. and now that we got even more stuff, i just want them to take my 60 bucks already! the enemies look fucking metal, the world looks absolutely stunning, and i'm happy that the criticisms from that IGN First are most likely going to be patched/fixed up in the final release, including the nitpicks some people have been going off about.
i love sonic frontiers and i can't wait for it to come out already.
