Sonic Frontiers. The big new Sonic game that has everyone talking about it but for the wrong reasons. So I wanted to talk about this game like I did with Sonic Forces and go into detail here, so bear with me on this.
We have gotten two video game trailers and two gameplay videos that show exploration and his basic moveset. And there are puzzles and collectibles and the combat focus video shows off more moves, combat, fights, and so on.
Let’s start with the first Trailer we got way back on Dec 9, 2021
Before I begin, I want to say this is all speculation, assuming what may or may not be, talking about the good, bad, and other things.
SONIC FRONTIERS – ANNOUNCE TRAILER
In this Trailer, Sonic is running from something chasing him underground and in the air. There are 3 rockets or projectiles that get launched after him. At first, I thought these were modified G.U.N robots with part of a phantom ruby. And we also hear what sounds to be Tails telling Sonic to come to his voice, which allows him to dodge the projectiles.
I noticed when the projectiles blew up, they created this purple-like blast that sound like the phantom ruby which makes me wonder if this game takes place after Sonic Forces. I know Infinite is not dead and after defeating Dr. Robotnik, he is nowhere to be seen with the Phantom Ruby, which implies the phantom ruby might be damaged but can still be used.
I’m getting too far ahead of myself.
After dodging the blast, Sonic has this new boost before running to a cliff to see there are no towns or cities that Sonic knows of. He is in a new location by himself and alone with hostile creatures and monsters.
Then we get a shot of locations that give me more of a Breath of the Wild / Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis vibe and the trailer ends the shot with Sonic coming face with a giant robot and a faint voice which I can assume Amy Rose says “let’s do this”
This makes me wonder if Sonic hearing faint voices at key moments implies something truly horrible went wrong this time, and maybe Sonic lost more than his home. His friends may be in real danger.
There is a lot for me to wonder about here. Is the phantom ruby going to play a key role? Is Sonic Frontiers a sequel to Sonic forces? Did something happen to Sonic’s friends? What are these creatures and monsters, and were they made by someone?
IGN FIRST – SONIC FRONTIERS TEASER
This trailer is much shorter and released on May 31, 2022
The music is somewhat upbeat but has a serious tone to it.
This trailer shows a little of everything. Sonic combat, exploration, monsters.
Sonic has a new move akin to nights. When you paraloop an enemy /or enemies, you will create a gust of wind that will send them high into the air (If they are small enemies), stunning them and leaving them wide open for attacks. It’s “Sonic wind” from Sonic heroes but tweaked a bit.
Sonic has a stronger homing attack that zigzag to the enemy at high speed, and the other move is Sonic wind, creating a ring-like gust of wind that does an area of effect damage (AOE) or does damage over time (DoT)
Sonic can punch, kick and do combos, this trailer does not show off much of his combat skills as the clips with combat are fast and done. Not much to make out here or note.
SONIC FRONTIERS: WORLD PREMIERE GAMEPLAY | IGN FIRST
This is one of the big videos on the game and there is a lot to note besides the pop-in with objects and draw distant being bad.
I have speculation about a good number of items in this video, and given this game was played by someone from IGN. It will be hard to say if sonic is stiff to control or not.
Watching the few seconds after the intro, it is clear to say this game is using a modified version of the hedgehog engine that was used in Sonic forces but that’s up to speculation and if this is the case, it will be interesting to see the Sonic Forces engine get reworked into an open world sonic game
Sonic can punch while on the ground but there is not enough info to make it clear if there is an advanced combat system where you can combo together or a one, two punch/kick. Unless they will take moves from Super Smash Brothers and give that move set to Sonic, as it would be more fitting?
Around the min mark, there is a pink heart object that is seen near boxes. I remember hearing someone saying this could be for Chao, and while that could be a good speculation, it is clear that sega has no interest in returning the Chao gardens.
Upon breaking these boxes, blue diamonds pop out before going into a hidden counter which implies this is a way to gain/refill the meter for boosting and other combat actions. It could also be exp to level up a set of unique skills or could be a different form of currency for special shops
And not too far up this tower are four purple coins, and I assume these will be used for upgrading gear or buying special gear to help you progress. There is not much to go off here but who knows. It could be like smash, find ten purple coins and upgrade a skill’s potency but the cost will increase for each level up and what skill/or passive.
Level 1 = 10
Level 2 = 15
Level 3 = 40
The tower has a rail and there is rail grinding but I will come back to this one later on. And that is something to bring up later.
So far, Sonic can run up walls with a blue texture or climb up them. He can climb and go into a run while on the walls as well. Could make for a good level design, if done right.
Sonic boost is no longer a hold to boost but a tap to gain a bit of speed which means boosting for attack probably won’t be a thing unless you get an upgrade or a passive upgrade. I have to assume that won’t be the case here but I could be wrong.
Sonic seems to control fairly well from first impressions alone. There are no tank-like controls that Generations and forces had. Going on a mini tangent here. In Sonic Generations, Sonic Forces, and maybe even Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colours? Sonic, Modern Sonic had this tank when moving from a standstill. If you wanted to move left or right, Sonic would have a lot of weight behind him moving around.
And here in Sonic Frontiers, at least from watching the video. Sonic doesn’t seem to have this stiff movement but again, this is going off impressions here and maybe Sonic has stiff movement.
Sonic can wall run at will and it is a bit buggy. But the idea of sonic running against mountain sides or walls with being a scripted automated section is great. Given some games have scripted automated scenes that takes control away from the player.
And in this video, they show off “puzzles” Granted, the first puzzle is already done. Not much of a puzzle there but the thing to note is Sonic has something on his hand that can grab this statue and turns it at will. It is unclear if this thing will have combat uses or will be subject to solving certain puzzles only.
Puzzle two is putting out flames. There is a floor tile puzzle where you must walk on each lit tile without jumping /or backtracking on any tiles
I mentioned a pink heart object and there is a red heart object and a blue fruit object. It is massive speculation time here.
As mentioned before, I said someone brought up that these things would be for Chao-like creatures. Let’s assume this is true, then Pink would be increased to Chao’s lifespan, red would boost a chao’s attack power, and blue would raise their stamina levels.
But given this is the latest hedgehog engine that Sonic Forces used but heavily modified into a completely different engine, so to speak. I have to assume that Chao is not on their radar but I could be wrong, and I would love to be wrong and proven wrong by sega.
I think the real uses for these fruits/hearts go as follows.
Red hearts will either be a hp/ring increase, attack up, or a recover hp/rings
Pink Hearts will be a speed up / defense up or stamina up
The blue fruit might be for your boost to increase it or increase the number of actions
I would assume you need to have four or ten of one type to get the effect but this is all speculation and I might not even be close, lmao. But the ideas of what they could do are interesting.
At the end of this video, Sonic is running on a wheel to power it up while being by Chao like creatures and it is unsure if they are going to have a Chao like system but the thought is there It could be nothing more than some creatures that sound like Chao and that’s all. It is interesting after all.
SONIC FRONTIERS: COMBAT GAMEPLAY | IGN FIRST
So, as I write this blog post, this is the last video showing off anything from Sonic Frontiers, unless there is another video that shows off a bit more detail and content, this is it for now, and this one will be fun to talk about.
Again, I will be talking about some key points in this video and giving notes on things.
Four creatures have the main focus of the video which gave the impression these three will be the normal monsters and the last one being a boss-like monster.
So, once the trailer “starts” It begins with Sonic fighting a set of spheres that can use lighting attacks to attack or knock Sonic away. During the first fight, we see a move from Sonic’s set. He can string together punches and kicks, he can dodge and sidestep for some reason.
Sonic seems to have two states, exploration and combat. Combat state, the camera will pan in and Sonic will enter a fight stance. I assume you can flee the combat if you can get far away to break enemy aggro.
The next enemy has an armored shell and can only be damaged after you paraloop or use your sonic wind move to lift the enemy armor off to open up the weak spot for attacks. In this section, we can see sonic doing a quick paraloop mid-combat. Although it knocks the enemy back, only a little bit.
The last enemy is a small dude that has blades as hands and can’t attack from afar. It is a melee-based enemy. They are pretty weak, taking two hits to bring them down.
The big boss is great, it is pretty much a boss from other sonic games but in enemy bitesize and I love it. You can paraloop its tiny feet to throw it off balance to attack the sole of the feet to stun it. You can run up the hand of this boss to deal damage and it is not automated, and you have to do the work. It is a little buggy but still looks awesome.
Now I have one question.
WHAT HAPPENS TO SONIC WHEN YOU DIE?
In other Sonic games. When you died or ran out of lives. You would be asked to continue or re-spawn to a checkpoint on death. But given the state of Sonic Frontiers, how would death be handled here? Would it go the full route that breath of the wild took where you can save anywhere but on death, you would need to load your last save /or auto-save?
Or would it be like Genshin Impact that on death, you will respawn to a nearby town or checkpoint/waypoint which would save you the trouble? But as of now, there is no way to be sure till the game comes out.
FOR THE GOOD THINGS
No more automated scripted sections, meaning you are in full control it seems
Open world Sonic
The graphics
new Sonic lore
A darker sonic game since SA2B?
The Combat looks fun and interesting. It seems to be more there under the hood.
Sonic has skills and exp akin to Sonic unleashed
Now for the bad things that do worry me.
FOR THE BAD THINGS
The game has some jarring pop-ins for objects. But this can be fixed later and hoping this does not cause any fps issues.
Some of Sonic’s animations feel off, incomplete. And can’t pretend that Sonic Forces didn’t happen, cause it did. We all let that one happen. When Sonic Forces got leaked, some of us thought this was early footage but this was the latest build of the game.
Sonic has no momentum on grind rails or terrain which seems like you can’t play around with the physics too much
The game seems empty, and it is giving me a Phantasy star online 2: New Genesis vibe. When New Genesis first drop, the game was a lot of space unused and Sonic Frontiers feels like that off impressions alone.
It seems like automation may still be a thing in certain sections. I hope it is nowhere as bad as Sonic Forces. That game pretty much played itself and I don’t want a repeat.
Sonic Frontiers is coming out in 2022 this year and I feel like we might be repeating history yet again. This can could have promise but what if that potential is wasted because sega wants to hit a deadline. And this happens a lot with SEGA. And pretty much this game has a lot of work to get done before the holiday of 2022 (seven months).
I want this game to be amazing. Really, I do. But the exploration gameplay left me with worries and dread. The combat gameplay video has removed some of the worries I had but not enough where I can go “this game will be safe in Sega’s hands.”
I’m a Sonic nerd that enjoys talking about Sonic games.
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