Talking Point: Should Sonic Frontiers Be Delayed? We Discuss Its Bizarre Debut And Fan Reaction

I don't see the point of this game, like where is it going? What is the objective? It just looks like mindless running that is way too slow for Sonic to begin with.

It needs more than a delay, it needs a rethinking. Rethink what Sonic could do in the open-world other than running around slowly.

The gameplay kind of reminds me of Solar Ash. But that game had a much better flow between the different puzzles and platforming sections. The world here looks a bit too fragmented. The realism of the environments is also a bit jarring. Would have liked more painterly textures and a simplified art style. That would also guarantee good performance which is crucial for a Sonic game.

It's problem is it has borrowed too many beats. The piano music just feels out of place. The world looks generic Unreal Engine fan fiction. The combat looks a bit samey and lacks depth. The traversal of the terrain with bumpers and speed ramps looks too automatic. I liked the huge boss where you sprint through rings to get on top of it. But the whole thing lacks any identity. And this is a Sonic game for crying out loud. If it looked like Green Hill Zone or something, I would be probably amazed they realised it in full 3D. As is...what am I looking at? Has a fan modded Sonic into Skyrim or something? Most worrying for me is...I don't see where the fun is. No idea what a delay would achieve. This is not a lack of polish problem.

I don't think a delay would do anything to change the outcome of this game. It is what it is.

The gameplay also does look repetitive as well. I don't have many high hopes for this tbh.

So I am a big Sonic fan, but my expectations for this game has been very low since the first footage was revealed.

This is what I wrote back in December after they released the first video, and my opinion has not changed after what they have shown recently. But other Sonic fans was really after me for my negativity then. I just hope that I am wrong and they will be right and this game will be great.

This is what I wrote then:

"Way to realistic looking for a Sonic game. They already tried this with Sonic 06, and it was horrible.

For a Sonic game, this looks really empty and boring. Nothing is going on.

It's like the developers wanted to make a realistic looking open world game, and made these nice looking sceneries and locations. Then management just put Sonic in there.

This does not look and feel like a Sonic game. The esthetics are all off.

If a Mario game looked like this, people in here would go nuts. I do not know what SEGA was thinking?

It looks neat and clean, if it wasn't a Sonic game. Make another game then, and leave Sonic out of this!"

Say what you want about Sonic Lost World, but that game at least has platforming and the world actually looked like something out of a Sonic game. Oh, and it has classic Badniks as common enemies, not the Generations redesigns.

That game looked like a Sonic game, but this doesn't even have that going for it. As it was mentioned already, it's like they want to do a follow-up to Sonic '06.

Another question I have right now is, are they gonna include Classic Sonic for no reason, like they did in Sonic Forces?

A delay won't change anything. It looks fairly polished already. The problem is what it fundamentally is. Empty plains with soothing music works for Zelda because that's all about exploration. With Sonic, it's not working for me. To be frank, Odyssey had the same issue. Some of the bigger levels were too spread out for what Mario gameplay is about. Not everything has to be big and sprawling.

I am glad that it is not just me thinking this. When I first saw all this new footage, I really felt nothing, and this is coming from someone who grew up with the sonic games and still considers the Adventure games as some of my favourite of all time to this day. I don't even know if I can be bothered to buy this. Just looks so boring to me.

It looks fundamentally flawed from a design and engine perspective. The game clearly uses canned/situational momentum which is unbelievable for an open world game. The combat and exploration "first looks", which should be building hype, painted an image of a game that didn't have the correct design document, especially if...this was what they used to say "hey, buy our game, here's the core mechanics!". Hopefully Sonic Team cancel the project because goddamn son if that's your best then expect critical mauling (again).

I think what we have here is an underwhelming tech demo. It looks boring, but Sega is a smart enough company to not release boring. It'll be fine when it comes out. Maybe even great.

I think Sonic Frontiers got potential so far. They did not really show the story or fundamental goal but the world and combat looked pretty good so far. Think a delay can always help with a game and Sonic does not really have an actual release date other than "2022" does it?

So when will we ask this same question for Pokémon? The textures for that game also looked rather rough and in need for a delay.

I'm not sure... It looks alright and I'm sure I'd enjoy playing it, but maybe a delay by half a year could improve... something.

I only just watched these trailers now. I knew everyone was calling it "Breath of the Wild" for Sonic, but WOW, I didn't realize how accurate that was. It's one thing to try to make an open-world game that is similar to BOTW, but you can't just pinch the design aesthetics straight up like that. Sonic has a style that is more rock & roll than this! It's really odd.

That said, so many people are knocking the game yet they LOVE Breath of the Wild. If BotW is so great, what makes this one so bad? Other than the lack of originality of course. Persoanlly, while I totally did enjoy BotW, I do think it's way overrated.

Does Sonic Team get ANY feedback during development? I don't want to believe that they wasted almost 5 years making something we don't want.

Well it looks good at least but I think the problem is that the game lacks direction.
Theres no clear objective and the combat looks same throughout what has been presented.

Like many have pointed out, it looks like a tech demo instead of a game.

I don't know how people equate this to BOTW, it is obviously the PSONG engine with a Sonic model. Even the combat uses the same attacking combo and cool down system. In fact, it looks like an alpha build using that engine, can't see this game coming out in 2022.

Sega won’t delay it but you will see attacks against Sonic Utopia/Robo Blast 2/Adventure 1&2 and even Mario Odyssey magically start appearing that all mysteriously say the same things.

I’m not a big fan of the aesthetic. Sonic is supposed to be vibrant, in your face, and overall radical. This looks like a generic BOTW ripoff with the PSO2NG aesthetic. I love Phantasy Star, but it works in those games because that’s the art style. This is Sonic the Hedgehog for crying out loud!

I think the six to twelve year olds the game, and this franchise, is aimed at will enjoy it as it is.

The trailer has nice graphics, but gives no real insight in how the game plays. Weird.

I actually liked the exploration demonstration minus the bugs and pop-in and whatnot. The combat looks pretty rough but then again combat has never been Sonic's strongest asset.

I think the more appealing approach would have been to have the open world act sort of like the hub that connects the more linear levels together with some cool secrets here and there. Kind of like Generations white world but a 3D open version of it.

I don't think it's a lost cause just yet but like the article said it just looks a bit too aimless. I think there is potential here but Sonic Team might simply not be up to the task to realize that potential.

They wanted to a make 3d sonic, and from the looks of it inspired by botw, what’s wrong in my opinion as this game, has no idea what it is.

Puzzles, is fine and all, but sonic is also known for there upbeat music, which this game ditched in favor for this very out of place piano music, and it just doesn’t feel like sonic.

They tinged the colors a bit, to go for that real world look, but here’s the thing, unleashed did this already, and it didn’t look like sonic was out of place.

I’m still going to get it, because it looks like it will be better then forces, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think it can be all bad, the dude playing wasn’t even boosting half the time.

This game looks like Breath of the Wild but with Sonic instead of Link, and I'm all for it. Most people are seeing a bland generic world here but I see an open canvas to just fool around in. This feels more like a game that needs to be played, not showcased for a true assessment. It's really hard to market an open-world concept, Zelda BOTW and Elden Ring did a great job at focusing on story trailers first and gameplay second. These two games could have easily fallen into the same trap Sonic Frontiers is in now.

We’ve seen very little, almost nothing really, but what we have seen looks interesting enough. Honestly, if it isn’t using the same lousy 3D Sonic design in a sad attempt to recreate the 2D Genesis games, that’s a humongous step in the right direction. It doesn’t resemble existing 3D Sonic, which is desperately needed, and the rest is way too soon to cast judgment on.

Honestly, there's more games than just Sonic Frontiers that need delaying.

Looks pretty sweet to me, perhaps this is the new direction Sonic 3-D games needed, can't be worse than the games including lost world to present.

Looks like one of those fan made ‘ever wondered what Mario/Zelda would like in unreal 4’ videos but this time it’s Sonic

As someone who has oft mentioned Sega's disproportionate focus on Sonic compared to their entire mountain of amazing IPs combined, I see danger here. A lot of folks will agree that not only have there been a ton of Sonic games released since the Dreamcast folded two decades ago, but that they've also been all over the map in terms of quality, so not only has Sega's brand been hugely diminished over that period, but for all their efforts (even delving into movies) Sonic hasn't fared perfectly, either.

Right now Sega as a company have mismanaged themselves out of the Arcade business they once dominated, and despite their claims of intending to offer greater variety and revisit their other IPs, most of what's made are outsourced to other studios to mixed results; they're a shell of the giant they once were. Sonic Frontiers is, if my understanding is correct, intended to be one of their first "super games" (a term which sounds dubious right from the get-go), and aside from remakes like Colors and Origins, it's the first original "mainline" Sonic title in awhile, and it's easily their highest-profile projectin years. That means A LOT is riding on its success, not only Sonic's future as a franchise but that of Sega themselves as a developer. Failure, whether critical or commercial, would be disastrous.

Even as ambivalent toward Sonic as I've become, I don't want that to happen, because Sega's responsible for so many great memories of this hobby for me. There's risk in everything in business, but diversification in terms of game IPs and genres is a basic means to protect against the inevitable diminishing returns of putting too many eggs into too few baskets. And Sega's put themselves into a place where this one single game could potentially make or break what's left of their brand.

I loved what I saw, will no doubt buy it and I haven't bought a sonic game since adventure 2. I think their decision to show random gameplay videos without a proper trailer that gives it context was a mistake and causing the poor reactions.

I'm not trying to exaggerate when I say this, but this looks like Sonic 06 levels of bad. Not even kidding, I think this actually looks WORSE than 06.

I've beaten 06 and I can genuinely say that I think the gameplay of it is more enjoyable then what Frontiers has presented so far. This is extremely soulless, directionless, and boring beyond belief. I even find the repetitive piano music to be annoying.

Sonic Team needs to retire as a development division. It's mind blowing how they just can't comprehend what Sonic fans want.

Meh let’s give it a fair shake, it’s not finished yet

I don't know what people were expecting. Looks way better than what I thought it was gonna be. Why do people need direction, it just looks like a nice big sandbox to run and jump around and explore.

My initial reaction was that everyone should calm down and give it at least a few more trailers...

...but that doesn't address the fact that SEGA have happily and openly provided IGN with this content!

Ergo, this is the best they've got. It's clearly another disaster.

They need to fully Metroid Prime 4 this game. As in, start again from scratch AND give it to a Nintendo development studio.

On the one hand, I really don't enjoy the aesthetic. It doesn't look like a Sonic game in the slightest, it looks like a mod/hack to put Sonic into an otherwise completely unrelated game. Every time a new Sonic game comes out that doesn't look like the 2D games but in 3D, a part of me dies. I don't understand why this has never really happened. Lost World came closest, I loved the look of that for the most part, but the Xtreme/Galaxy gimmick and sometimes janky level design messed it up The "Sonic World" demo on Sonic Jam, Sonic R and the polygon bonus stages of the Saturn version of Sonic 3D absolutely nailed it, I don't know why Sega always tries photorealism to some extent for the mainline entries. Its offputting and weird, and Frontiers is the absolute worst offender yet. 95% of this could be stock assets from the Unity/Unreal storefronts.

On the other hand, I assume the story and gameplay loop is purposefully playing up the "fish out of water" things and Sonic somehow ends up deserted on this unfamiliar and almost deserted island with no idea what he's doing there, and slowly pieces things together, meeting more people, solving more puzzles, classic Zelda style... and the seemingly empty open-ness is to increase the feeling of isolation, and the fact he looks so out of place is to increase the feeling of tension and wonder at new discoveries. These elements could be really interesting if the game is structured, designed, and written well (please no proceedurally generated open space, actually design a proper world where exploring has purpose and rewards!).

There is some clear jank in some of the animations that are so obviously wrong, I'm 90% sure they will fix them (for example: forward flipping whilst jumping forward, but then also forward flipping when jumping backwards, rather than an backflip is ridiculously jarring and so easy to fix it should never have been left in trailers! smh).

All that said, when watching the gameplay footage, my overwhelming feeling was that it actually looks fun and I really got itchy fingers wanting to play it, and just run around exploring, finding things to bounce off, glide on, parkour around with, and enjoy finding cool little puzzle pieces to unlock even more new areas to explore. Even with what little I've seen, this looks very much like something I'll enjoy doing. If there is an intreguing story/mystery that slowly unravels along the way, making me feel like I'm discovering it for myself, that will be really neat!

At the risk of annoying 90% of the people here... whilst I can see how well designed it is, I don't actually enjoy BOTW that much... mostly because the big open world is fairly sparse, and Link moves so slowly and ineligantly, and things like having your weapons degrade and having to craft more just slows things down further. I have much more fun with a tightly designed world where every square inch is planned out and used, like in Links Awakening. In this game, Sonic is fast, and looks fun to control. Even if the game is super sparse and the major areas and objects are really spread out, I think I'll have a lot more fun running and bouncing around between them. Of course it won't be as balanced or well crafted as BOTW, I'd never even slightly claim that. But I think the fact Sonic controls like he does, and his attacks are all things that he does himself (rather than requiring weapons to weild which can be lost/broken) could remove my two biggest gripes with BOTW and other games trying to emulate it. Hopefully I'm not the only person who feels like this and I won't get completely piled on by people 😳

For me personally I just don't see Sonic as the type of game that suits an open world format, that is usually best reserved for RPGs like Zelda or the Elder Scrolls games, if anything they should have had a Mario Odyssey style Sonic game, basically Sonic Lost World, but way better. This just seems thrown together without any consideration as to whether or not it will actually work, could it be good? Maybe, but based on the footage I have seen I am not getting my hopes up, making it open world for the sake of it being open world is a bad idea.

This is a sonic mania situation. Hand it off to the fans since they're clearly more capable of making a good sonic game.

As a gaming enthusiast with no nostalgia for sonic this is worrying. I would get this if it looked fun but it doesn’t. Gameplay looks very listless and I see no compelling reason to explore. Just looks like a prety tech demo.

I think the game has potential. I think what's shows has the potential to be fun, but it's hard to pull it together and it doesn't look like it feels satisfying...
To me it looks more like Mario Odyssey in gameplay, but BOTW in feel. I don't mind sega trying something new, sonic 3d games haven't worked for me since adventure 1/2. They just need to make the gameplay feel satisfying!

It definitely needs a delay judging from the trailers the attacks so stiff so it looks awkward on the animation and open world it looks like fan mod it. The setting looks so empty there's no life at least add some animals and other cause it looks so empty and generic open world.

I don't want this being another Sonic 06 because this has potential so far I am very concerned it looks so bland and boring I hope final product is good.

Not really no, Sonic hasnt been good in decades, so i say just release it and be done with it, the fans will buy and defend everything called Sonic, no matter if it has 06 or Adventure quality, so why bother making an effort?

"A delayed game is eventually good. Except Sonic. That series has always been carp."
-S. Miyamoto

@relinqued I was about to say Colours, Generations and Racing Tranformed were all excellent... but then I looked up release dates and realised they are all a decade old. I must be getting old as they all feel pretty current gen to me 😅 At least Mania is brilliant and that was "only" 5 years ago...

@NEStalgia I know you are joking, but I'd really like to know Miyamoto's honest opinion of the actually good classic Sonic games, as they are so fundementally different to Mario games, but still good in different ways. He actually said that "Nights Into Dreams" is the game he "wished he made" so there's a good chance he'd understand the momentum/ellegance/parkour style replay value of learning and practicing a good Sonic level 🤔

@GrailUK Agreed 👍

I think it should be scrapped. I know it's a harsh opinion, but I really feel like its beyond saving at this point and will only reinforce the fact that Sonic Team can't release good games anymore. I really don't know why Sonic Mania 2 was such a hard concept to grasp. And I don't know why new 3D Sonic games have to be tarnished with all of these new ideas/gimmicks/copied formulas from other games. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were pretty good starts, and the only 2 games that ran with the closest things to traditional formulas (Colors and Generations) were the best ones since. I don't know why it's so hard to take those formulas, and take time with evolving and polishing them.

Open-world Sonic
Civilization played from a first-person view
Call of Duty dating sim
All these things sound equally good.

I just don’t think open world will work for sonic. It honestly looks like sonic was placed in botw with futuristic enemies.

@samuelvictor Yeah, that really would be interesting. I remember some sort of round table with him and Naka years ago and I remember Naka talking about things Mario was that Sonic wasn't that he'd wished he could have captured, but I don't recall anything Miyamoto said about Sonic that he'd envied, lol. TBH I think the design of Sonic games is fundamentally opposed to most of Miyamoto's design philosophies, I'd be surprised if he did have a lot of positive thoughts on it. It was designed specifically to be the opposite of his own styles, after all.

Please, Sonic has been "disappointing" people for over 20 years now. When are people going to realize that the Sonic franchise just isn't what they think it is? What exactly do they think it's suppose to be? Another 06, unleashed, lost world, or forces? People hated those too. Even the Colors rerelease was panned.

And don't forget that Sonic games have always intentionally copied Nintendo. Sonic 1 copied Mario Bros, Adventure copied Mario 64, Unleashed copied Twilight Princess, Colors copied NSMB, and Lost World copied Mario Galaxy. We shouldn't be surprised that they're copying BoTW now too. BoTW really isn't very "Zelda" like either,. but it was a fun new direction for the franchise. Frontiers can be the same way for Sonic.

The fact is that Sonic is whatever Sega says it is. It's never been meant to be taken too seriously anyway. Just enjoy it for what it is and have fun.

@Dr_Corndog IDK, CoD dating sim might be the first game in that series I pay money for. That just sounds like a recipe for a good time, unlike Sonic Frontiers.

I mean it looks okay, but not quite fitting for Sonic. It does have the look of "Sonic in BotW on Unreal Engine", but until we get more context on what you're doing in the open world I'll reserve judgment. An open world Sonic could be good (Utopia is a great example of how a more open Sonic game should work), but there needs to be a reason for us to speed around wherever we want and I don't see what that reason is yet.

Sonic needs to be taken away from SEGA. Mania was clearly a fluke and they haven't known what the hell to do with the series since 1994.

Jeez people do nothing but complain about anything Sonic does

Can we stop mentioning botw in any & every open world game 🙈

@NEStalgia Yeah, whilst they are both side scrolling mascot platformers, the gameplay loop, movement/control, and level design theories couldn't be any more different... so I always kinda assumed Miyamoto would feel classic Sonic was doing platforming "wrong"... but then when he singled out Nights into Dreams as a game that he admired so much, which expands on many of the design theories and mechanics of Sonic gameplay, I wondered if infact he would perhaps secretly admire certain aspects of Sonic... especially so many years after the rivalry has settled down and Nintendo and Sega have been partnering on so many prospects, so it wouldn't be controversial for him to complement the one time "enemy"!

For the record, I fricken love 2d Mario, especially SMB3 and SMW which are both about as perfectly designed as a traditional square-tile based platformer can be imo. But overall, I find myself wanting to replay the 2d Sonic games more often as there are the elements that encourage trying to improve your times or do things more elegantly - has the "just one more try and I can do better" of something like a Tony Hawks game.

@Would_you_kindly apparently not. Because botw invented open world games

@Would_you_kindly Yeah, but have you watched the trailer? It's more than just open-world style that they are borrowing. The tinkling piano music is strikingly similar and to me is out of place in a Sonic game.

It's sonic, I expected trash, i got trash. Looks like some stock assets was sparsely scattered across a plain green map. Good thing I'm not a sonic fan.

This is what happens when you blindly hop on the current fad bandwagon. BoTW still is the worst Zelda in my opinion due to it...not being a Zelda game at all.

Not that I've ever cared for Sanic games, so no skin off my nether regions since my interest was already at a 0.

@BrianJL To be fair the whole "soothing music" trends comes from Minecraft, Zelda just copied it too. It feels out of place in BoTW too, imho it's one of the games worst aspects.

@ThePizzaCheese I don't remember significant complaints for the original release of Colors or for Generations at all. Sure there were some, but you can't please everyone and even masterpieces like BotW have their flaws and detractors. Colors and Generations at least looked like a promising direction for the series, but then they completely went away from it with Lost World and Boom and then poor design choices doomed Forces which was for all intents and purposes Generations 2. Also, what exactly did games like Generations, Forces, and Boom copy exactly? I agree that their track record has been suspect for a while now (really since they went 3D) and they've had more misses than hits, but I wouldn't quite say things like Sonic can do nothing but disappoint or that they always copy Nintendo.

Pepperidge Farm 'members when the BOTW trailer was first revealed and everyone called it a "Skyrim Clone"...

it seems like it will be tailored like a pso2 engine except with sonic. if this is the case, then sega wants you to live in this world. it should be enough to keep the lights on. surprisingly, simply this task is difficult to accomplish.

I'm nervous about the game. The Gameplay didn't look finished yet. And I'm not just talking about animation. We did not see any UI. For a Gameplay Showcase. I found this very odd. It did not help in conveying what was going on.
I'm also not sure what to think about the art style. It looks way too bland. The landscape didn't look very interesting. The Color pallet was strangely.... muted? It didn't feel warm or vibrant, something I usually associate with Sonic.
And lastly: Sound Design. We have the soft ambient piano music and then the way too loud sounds of sonic dashing, ground pounding, jumping on springs etc. The sounds feel so out of place.
I want it to be good. I want a good 3D Sonic game. But I'm not sure.

Its already delayed to this year which is 2022 so why delay it?

@samuelvictor Well yeah but Mania was not done by the usual talentless devs, they had former hackers do it who previously helped out with porting games for them to the GBA and stuff.

@Bolt_Strike
Sure there weren't many complaints about Colors and Generations, but there was a ton for Forces and the Colors rerelease. Even when Sega gives people EXACTLY what they asked for people still complain. Forces wasn't any different then Generations, the fact that you think is was kinda just proves my point.

Of course not every single single Sonic game is a copy, but you can't deny Generation has roots to Mario. The whole boost mechanic thing comes from Sonic rush on the DS, which was made to copy Mario Bros. Also, Sonic Boom was developed by an external studio and published by Nintendo, so it really doesn't have much to do with Sega at all.

@relinqued I don't think Whitehead or Stealth were anything to do with the (really hideous) GBA Sonic Genesis port (I hope not!) but yeah they were big in the modding, rom hacking and fan game communities and Sega hired them because all the fans agreed that their original fan games were good enough to be pro. I believe Tyson Hesse who directs all the hand drawn classic Sonic animations for their games was also originally making fan art before he was hired for official work. Hiring those three was the smartest decision Sega have made in decades tbh. The IOS/Andoird ports were the definitive versions, Mania was superlative, and Origins should be good for this exact reason.

I wish they'd hire more people from the fan community, there's plenty of really cool fan made 3D demos. Also, I may well be developing my own fan Sonic game at the same time as my actual commercial games in the vague hope that if enough fans like it, Sega might hire me lol. But shh don't tell anyone 😋

@relinqued They're not "former hackers", they just had a history of making Sonic fan games. They started working with Sega by recreating the genesis games for ios/android.

I think the game is okay, the open world people seem to like it. It's just the animations that seem to bother some. With a little fixing this game would be even better than Sonic 2006, Sonic Labyrinth, and Sonic Boom.

@GrailUK Hit the nail right on the head, I have no idea what this game is or trying to be at this point.

@Serpenterror I'm impressed someone actually remembers Sonic Labyrinth lol.

@Serpenterror lol Whenever I hear people moan about Boom or '06 I always think "you've obviously never played Labyrinth". Truly the worst Sonic game I've ever played. I always buy and try and play through every game, even the ropey ones, and there's usually at least something kind I can say about them. Not sure I can think of anything I liked about Labyrinth. I don't even remember any of the music, which is usually a saving grace of the "bad" games.

@Dinglehopper I think 06 deserves a 2nd chance, at least it knew what it wanted to be.

The game itself isn’t even all that bad, the dev team getting rushed is what I think ruined it, if that hadn’t happened, if it had been polished, it would have been more well received I think.

@Snatcher To be completely honest I think the quality of a lot of AAA game these days are about on par with Sonic 06.

@Snatcher Yes, there were many good ideas and some absolutely brilliant assets, if the game had been given the time to finish it properly, it could have been pretty great. Its the jank, glitches, and camera that make it so hard to play. All of that could have been ironed out, but noooo Sega had to push them to release it for the 15th anniversary. Boo.

Not sure I'll ever find Sonic kissing a human anything but weird, but I can't really argue about that as even since 1990 that was always the intention for him to have a human girlfriend (til SOA rightly nixed it as being creepy), and for some reason I'll never understand, Sonic Team love putting human characters in 3D Sonic games.

@ThePizzaCheese Rom Hacks are hacks.

@samuelvictor I don’t think I will really get over that seen ether, sega is always rushing these guys, when you should just let them make the game!

Lego Star Wars got pushed back a few times, and look at how that game turned out! It’s one of the biggest Lego games to date!

@ThePizzaCheese Definitely, sonic 06 suffered from poor decisions by sega!

@relinqued No they're not.

Even IF the game turns out decent or better, this is going to be remembered and one of the worst marketed games of all time.

@Snatcher Yeah agreed. I think it happens so often because there is so much pressure for Sonic games to make profits for the shareholders and Sega Japan's home entertainment division put all their eggs in one basket while sitting on their other properties.

The thing that I don't understand is why they don't make their previous arcade, Master System, MegaCD, 32X, Saturn & Dreamcast games more widely available - it would be quick and cheap to put out compilations or even sell them separately for Hamster style prices and they would make an absolute killing with almost no investment... and then they could buy themselves more time for their occasional AAA releases to polish them up properly so they actually get good reviews and sell more copies.

I don't see why people are up in arms

poor Sonic, have been rough since he went to 3D

Sonic Frontiers lack polish, too raw and without life on it

@ThePizzaCheese Forces kind of mucked up the boost formula with poor level design, which was a result of the level designers that worked on Colors and Generations being poached by Nintendo. That's not really an issue with the fanbase being unpleasable, that's an issue with not having good talent to succeed them (possibly also mismanagement).

Every sonic game since like 1994 should have had more quality resources put into development. Quite frankly these games are always middling-bad. You had to know right off the bat from the announcement that this game would be the botw/open world take on sonic, and that it was going to be awkward. I was shouted down by many at the time, but this is precisely 1000% what I thought this game would be

@Giancarlothomaz They really never got it right

It looks like Skyrim meets a DBZ game

The Sonic Adventure games had more realistic, "un-Sonic" graphics and people seem to like those games just fine. Though I won't presume the tastes of people on this site.

I don't really have an opinion on this as there's too little to go on, but I will say games like Pokemon Legends Arceus and Kirby & the Forgotten Land both have rather noticeable graphical shortcomings but are still great games in spite of them.

My own opinions on the gameplay so far largely echo this article. I don't think anything they've shown looks awful, but none of it looks exciting and lacks some needed context. I think both of these vids don't sell the game well at all. I'm not entirely sure that context will change that.

Above all I still feel like the gameplay we've seen illustrates a fundamental lack of understanding on Sonic Team's part about what people actually like about Sonic games. That's what is the most dismaying to me personally.

The open world Sonic game I envisioned looks more like Burnout Paradise than this. A game where you move insanely fast through an open world but still have set paths through it. A game where obstacles can break up that speed, but you're constantly finding new routes to your destinations.

I hope I am dead wrong. I would love for this to be a real return to form for Sonic. I'll try to keep an open mind.

Like so many others have pointed out, it feels like a tech demo instead of a trailer. I’ll keep my judgement for when an actual trailer is released that gives me an idea what all this running around will lead to.

I was never that excited for this game but all of the whingeing online is absolutely exhausting. Can people stop caring so much and being so negative about every tiny thing?

I hate that every open world game gets compared to BotW now. BotW neither did it first, nor was it the first to do it right, nor is it the de facto gold standard. I loved BotW, but jeez...

Otherwise, I dunno, Sonic looks like Sega wanting to get on the open world bandwagon with Sonic. The realistic look is what kills it for me. Why doesn't the world look like a Sonic world? This looks like Sonic in a modded Skyrim or something.

I think if they ditched the look of unity auto-terrain generator and made the rocks yellow checkerboard and the grass greener. They could pull assets from sonic colours to make it look a bit more like a sonic game. Also this unity look will never run on switch, with the fast movement needed. I loved running around the first level of the first sonic, as if it was an open world, looking for secrets, and with sonic 2, trying to get enough rings to turn yellow. I'm am not against open world sonic.

@Moistnado Literally agree wholeheartedly with everything you just said.

Lol what is delaying it going to do? This game literally looks like they just dropped a Sonic model into Fantasy Star Online. Its this highly stylized, nearly cubist character design running around in a generic, muddy realistic environment; total mismatch (and its not even the first time they've done that)

What on earth makes people think Sonic Team is even capable of making anything at all good ever? They've been working on this game for at least 4 years and what they have to show is a mess with exactly the same movement and animation problems they always have, plus it literally looks like a unity asset flip. They couldn't make any game good with any amount of development time; they need to be shut down and the IP needs to be sold to Nintendo or something.

"Breath of the Wild still felt like a Zelda game."

lol.

Sorry... I meant, LOL.

But seriously, it's 2022. Nintendo-only gamers still comparing every open world game to Breath of the Wild is just cringe, and really shows how few games they've played. BoTW was innovative in its physics engine, the runes, and the resulting interactivity with the world.

It was absolutely not innovative in its overworld design, art, or sound track. Implying that BoTW was some key player in the popularization of grassy fields in high fantasy games, or soft cinematic sound pieces, requires of level of mental gymnastics I could only attribute to a psychotic disorder.

@BrianJL
"If BotW is so great, what makes this one so bad?"

i can't believe I'm saying this, but people want different things from sonic and zelda games. not the same thing lol.

have you played a sonic game? 😋

_______

in general, i think something that looks more like 3d blast but 3d (lol) would be much more effective.

ive been skeptical of "open world sonic" for a very long time, and continue to be so now. maybe even more seeing that this is as creative as sega feels up to in 2022, and this is what they think it should be.

im not sure why they think sonic is a good candidate for open world (particularly if they are indeed "chasing nintendo" as is implied above a number of times,) as clearly sonic is more of a mario or kirby than a "zelda," and nintendo itself has (infamously!) resisted bringing either of those into an open world. large, closed circuit worlds are clearly the way to go for 3d sonic. think big huge fast (3D blast lookin) mario galaxy. wonderful!

sonic could warp via halfpipe. cmon.

i said "too early to tell" but im pretty much into "write this off and keep hoping for the one right game to emerge" mode now. but, i will try to remain open minded!

thanks for listening!

Maybe they'll redesign it to start on Eggurocho.

@samuelvictor That's a good point, though I think Dreams is so far removed from platformer gameplay one doesn't try to compare it to Mario. Miyamoto also didn't like DKC 😆

I tend to agree with wanting to repay Sonic more. I always considered the Mario's the staple game but even in the 90s the sonics we're in constant rotation for me.

@-wc- Well, sure, but BotW wasn't exactly like any Zelda game before it either. Just because this is redefining the Sonic paradigm, isn't in itself bad. I do think an open-world Sonic COULD work, but I don't think this is the right way to implement it.

The way they’re presenting these first looks at the game is absolutely bizarre. They should at least have somebody talking through what’s going on as they play so we get some idea of direction.

I don't understand how Sonic is still so popular when 90% of his games are mediocre at best.
When people compare the series to Mario its an insult to Mario imo.

@-wc- People knock it a lot, perhaps because having to slow down to collect Flickies seems the antithis of what Sonic should be, but for me, 3D Blast / Flickies Island absolutely nails the aesthetics of the 2D Sonic games but from a 3 dimensional perspective. That type of world but recreated in polygons with a free camera was what I was imagining when I was playing Mario 64 and looking forward to when there was a Sonic equivalent. Sadly, it never really came. The same developers made Sonic R, which does a very good job at the aesthetics, but of course its more of a track based racing game than a platformer.

3D Blast has the distinction of being the only Megadrive game I ever paid full price for and bought the same week of launch. We were fairly poor so to save up £50 took forever, and usually I'd have given up earlier and bought a second hand game or Master System game on clearance, but I was SO excited to play Sonic in a "3d" environment. I didn't regret that purchase at all and loved it. I remember a friend coming round to visit, and being absolutely amazed by the graphics and saying "its just like Sonic, but in 3D!!" and I was so happy they were as excited as I was to just be able to run around and explore Green Hills in a new way. Later on I rebought the game for Saturn and loved it all over again (especially those new polygonal 3d half-pipe bonus levels!). I was surprised years later to see on the internet that it wasn't a well loved game, but I'll always have a soft spot for it, principally because of how well it nails the aesthetics and the feel of the environments.

@NEStalgia Haha yeah you're right. I know he walked back those DKC comments as if he'd been misquoted or mistranslated, but I can totally see him believing that it was all graphics and no substance... which I disagree with, I actually love DKC. But again, its a very different type of platforming to a traditional Mario. More organic level design, momentum based movement, lots of hidden secrets, collectathon elements. In some ways its a mix of Mario and Sonic styles of gameplay, meeting somewhere in the middle, with some euro-platformer influences too.

@samuelvictor This!

@HeeHo I think for many fans, its very much about the characters, the unique designs of the worlds, the quality of the art, and the music plays a huge part too. Many Sonic fans obsess over specific TV shows (of which there are many different ones in different styles/genres) or the various comic series (Archie, Fleetway, etc) even if they don't like the games. He just looks cool!

For me, I mostly love the 2D games, and I tolerate the 3d games for the bits in there I enjoy, like the characters, music, settings... and every now and again the 3D games randomly are actually semi decent too and its a bonus! lol.

But really, for many people, there's just something about the first time they see the character design, the colourful worlds, hear some iconic and instantly memorable music, and it just clicks and you think "this is the coolest thing I've ever seen". [side note: this is why there is such fan backlash against whats been shown of this game, as the design of the world seems completely removed from the aesthetic most love about the series, we haven't seen any other characters or enemies that we know, and the music seems generic and nothing like the usual style or quality too]

Personally, whilst there are tonnes of games I like, movies I like, tv shows I like, I can't remember anything that I've instantly loved as much as the first time I saw Sonic running through Green Hills at a friend's house in '91, and heard that music. I was instantly obsessed. I collected everything I could find with Sonic on it, all the comics, toys, plushies etc I could lay my hands on... begged my parents for a Megadrive even though we could never afford it, and I didn't finally get my own copy of Sonic 1 until Christmas 1993 (and even then it was on Master System because we still couldn't afford the MD.. finally got one second hand in 1995)... but those 2 years before that I did nothing but draw Sonic whilst humming the Green Hills theme, learn to play the music on the piano, try and teach myself to program my own version of Sonic for our ancient Commodore... its all I could think about, I just wanted to be that cool hedgehog and explore that beautiful colourful world, and rescue all the cute animals trapped in the robots

Its right up there in my memories of points in my life where I truly felt "everything changed" - I've no idea why it was so important to my brain, but it was. I'm still weirdly irrationally passionate and protective over Sonic to this day, as I'm sure people on this site will have noticed.

Sure, not everyone gets it, many people don't feel that way. But millions do. I've read variations of that same story countless times on Sonic fan forums or tweets or under YouTube videos. I guess its just an extremely well designed character and aesthetic, built for maximum appeal, and somehow they struck gold in a way that even the creators don't really understand how or why. It might seem weird to those who don't get it, and Sonic fans get teased a lot, or seen as obsessive or creepy somehow, but for me at least its an innocent thing that just taps into happy childhood memories and sparks my imagination and creativity like nothing else, and the fact that the characters are still going strong and I see new generations of kids watching the movies, seeing the shows, buying the toys etc makes me really happy to see

@-wc- I mean Utopia is fairly open (not quite open world, but very open, it's pretty much the video game equivalent of a 6 lane superhighway) and that seems like a good formula for Sonic. I don't think open world is that far off. Still, they probably should've done that and gone open world the next game instead of jumping headfirst into full open world, then they'd have a better understanding of how to keep Sonic's core appeal through the transition. Pokemon is using that strategy and it seems to be working for them.

I feel like it is too early to judge the aesthetic of the game. We are only seeing a small part of the game. There will probably be more colorful areas too.
The part with the tower looked quite good, but the combat seems very boring. My biggest concern is how it will run on the Switch. The forest part in particular made me worried (but maybe it is just reminding me of Korok Forest from BOTW).
I think that Sega have made a mistake with these gameplay videos. It isn't very interesting because we have no idea what is really going on. For example, what is Sonic collecting? What is it's purpose?
I am also worried about some of the puzzles. I feel like there is going to be far to much just running around things in a circle.

I am somewhat optimistic about the game still. I feel like it could be really fun being and able to run around in such a large space and up cliffs etc. I just really hope we get a better trailer explaining maybe some of the plot or something.

Not so sure Sonic fans know what they want to be honest, and with the exceptions of the Adventure, Colors and Generations, the 3D games have mostly been a total mess, with more recent games causing various outrage from the core fans, and being very poor quality.

This new game looks interesting, and at this point is way to premature to state it's trash, as we have only seen a tiny portion of the game thus far.

How can people trash what we've seen of this game so much after years of fawning over Breath of the Wilds's repetitive wasteland? The hive mind is real.

Oh surprise! The internet hates a thing! I saw the video and thought "okay, sure, it could be interesting but I'll wait to hear more" and then moved on with my life. Apparently I'm a terrible person for doing that.

just scrap all of this soulless tech demo, thanks

Being a Sonic fan sounds really crappy, why do they do it??

The problem is Sonic Team, who clearly have no idea to make an outstanding Sonic game in 3 dimensions. I really think Sega should hire a new dev team to start afresh.

@TheBigK Because we love the character. There's SO many different versions of Sonic, with different canons and continuities (kinda multiverse style) over countless games, tv shows, movies, comics, anime & manga even novels, the majority of which are vastly different from each other. You'll never find a Sonic fan who loves every one of them, and you'll find plenty who really hate certain incarnations. But whichever version is the one that speaks to them, they will love. For me, thats mostly the classic 2d games, but I've enjoyed elements of most of the rest, as its fun to see the character in different situations and in a completely different style.

I think by now, all Sonic fans are very used to the fact that they won't love every single new version, because its never been a series of consistency - hell, even the first game had 2 completely different versions with different gameplay styles and level design philosophies (the 16bit and 8bit) and when developing the sequel, the team split into 3 different groups - one who make 16bit Sonic 2, one who made Sonic CD, and one who made the 8bit sequel, all three are extremely different takes on expanding the formula in different directions.

This year, I've personally been really happy with the second movie, and I'm frothing at the mouth for Origins... Sonic Prime looks like it might be interesting, and I'm intregued for Frontiers, even though its not the game I personally would have wished for. So thats a solid 50% of the big products coming out that I love, and the rest I'm at least interested in, but if they turn out to not be great, I'm still going to be happy. I'm sure there will be plenty of newer Sonic fans who don't care about Origins, and maybe they didn't like the movie, but they might enjoy Frontiers, or Prime. Thats the joy of having so many completely different alternate versions, where the common factor is the one thing we all agree on: Sonic himself is cool.

The best equivalent I can think of is the hundreds of different versions of Spider-Man over multiple comic, movie and game franchises. I can happily really love many of the Amazing Spider-Man comics, Raimi Spider-Man 2 & Into the Spider-Verse movies, and the Neversoft games, like but not love MCU Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man comics, 90s Animated series, and the Insomniac games, be indifferent to the Amazing Spider-Man movies, and absolutely hate Raimi Spider-Man 3, many of the 2d videogames, and certain runs of the comics. The stuff I don't like doesn't make me dislike the character, it just emphasises why I like the other versions better, and makes me appreciate them more. However, the beauty of the situation is there are plenty of others who enjoy the versions I don't like, and hate the versions I love. I find that really interesting, and fun that even though we have completely different tastes, we still enjoy the franchise. Same with Sonic.

@Kevember
Because most people don't think Breath of the Wild's open world is a repetitive wasteland.

The automatic impulse by some to damage control Sonic Frontiers by claiming that BOTW is empty continues to fascinate me.

Heads Up: IGN is premiering a "First Hands-On Impressions" video at 5PM UK time today, which will hopefully tie things together a bit more, and give us some ideas of story or how it all fits together, if its literally showing someone playing the first few minutes. Link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkCvVtZ_ZZM&ab_channel=IGN

Only problem is its premiering exactly the same time as the official Sonic Central stream, so I'll probably watch that, and then replay the IGN stream right after.

@westman98 Without wanting to insult anyone's favourite game, personally I've always found BOTW to feel empty since I first played it on launch day after buying it for Wii U and looking forward to it for years. It doesn't help that (at least to begin with) Link moves so slowly, the enemies and collectibles you experience early on are extremely repetitive, much of the landscape is clearly proceedurally generated with the same handful of assets rather than purposefully designed, and all previous Zelda games were designed SO much more tightly so everything felt like it had a precise purpose and navigating and backtracking didn't feel like it was wasting your time.

I've always felt that way, despite many attempts to try and replay it to see what the fuss was about. I even rebought it for Switch because I was convinced I must have missed something, but no, I just don't find the world inbetween shrines remotely interesting. And no this isn't some weird "cope" as a Sonic fanboy because I actually have many of the same concerns about Frontiers. But at least the fact he moves faster means running through the empty space to the important parts should be quicker and hopefully more fun.

I'm not insinuating that Frontiers is even slightly likely to be close to the quality/polish of BOTW, it clearly won't and no-one's expecting that. But BOTW wasn't to everyone's taste. I think (hope) this game might well be flawed and janky, but still fun to mess around in.

@samuelvictor
???
There is no procedural generation in Breath of the Wild - it's open-world is entirely hand-crafted.
And unless announced otherwise, there won't be any procedural generation in Sonic Frontiers either.

@westman98 Perhaps I misspoke by using the term as generic shorthand to mean a style/vibe I'm getting rather than the actual exact programming technique in the engine. I don't mean "proceedural generation" as in an infinite universe generated in real time by a seed number, like No Man's Sky. I meant more that the terrain feels like when developing the game, it was been made with a randomly generated height map, and then just adjusted in the areas they want to add specific features, shrines, secrets etc. And then the objects added to the "empty" areas, such as trees, bushes, etc seem mostly just randomly placed by an algorithm, with code to vary the size, angle, number of branches etc in the way you can use a Speedtree style plug-in to "randomly" generate "unique" trees from a small handful of assets and textures. I've made countless demos like that in different languages and development environments since I started learning different 3D programming and developing techniques back in the early 2000s, and those kinds of terrains are some of the first things you learn. Thats why everyone is saying this looks like an Unreal/Unity asset store demo, and they aren't wrong.

If I'm wrong about BOTW and every single inch of the map was lovingly placed by hand, rather than randomly placed with an algorithm and then adjusted and tweaked by designers and playtesters, then I apologise to them, but sadly, regardless of whether they did or not, that's exact the impression I get when playing. Its nothing like how the purposefully designed areas of Ocarina, Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, or especially the grid based 2d games feel. It feels sparse, random, and makes the reusing of assets feel like padding to make the game artificially larger/longer.

Again though, I don't mean to insult a game millions enjoy, I'm clearly in the minority. As I hopefully made abundantly clear in my above posts, I'm perfectly fine with other loving things that I don't, and vice versa. That's how the world works. But I'm certainly not the only one who feels that way about BOTW. I've tried to love it. I just can't see it. The shrines are by far the best bit, but still seem smaller and less fun than dungeons in other Zelda games, and the slog to get from one to the other just isn't fun to me.

[edit] Thinking about it further, obviously, in real life, terrain and placement of plants is pretty much randomly generated by nature too, so its not that this kind of technique for an open world is a problem, per se. Its just very easy for a game following that style to feel generic and empty if there isn't enough variety of creatures, enemies, npcs, plants, structures, and (crucially) enough purposefully designed elements to find and interact with. This is the problem I have with most open world games set in a natural environment, not just limited to BOTW. For me, the thing that makes the Zelda (and Sonic!) games that I enjoy is how tightly designed, fun to explore and learn/memorise they are, and how every screen brings something new to see or interact with, often iterating on things previously learned, giving a sense of progress and meaning you can't get lost for long, or get confused where you are because it looks exactly the same as another area. They aren't meant to be emulating reality, its a hyper reality where everything is exagerated or condensed and concentrated versions of real life. Thats what's fun for me. But again, others feel the opposite way, and thats cool.

@westman98 Maybe they'll add a bunch for IA generated mini dungeons to Sonic Frontiers and that'll make it as good as Breath.

@Kevember
Sounds good to me 😂. Would at least be more interesting than what Sonic Frontiers currently looks like.

The problem I have with this gameplay video:

1. Get rid of those ugly floating mono rails in the air. Makes no sense. It's just cheap and fugly! Create more interesting parcours and challenges that better integrate into the terrain. If you go for a realistic looking world, then design the parcours and challenges accordingly so it makes sense.

2. The gameworld looks nice, but its dead as F! It feels completely lifeless and makes it look boring and bland.
You see the ocasional bird suddenly pop up floating over Sonic's head and that's it?!
Where are all the creatures living on this gameworld. Other than an occasional roaming enemy NPC.

Like other's have said. Right now it just feels like some Unreal Engine gameworld rendering demo. Not an actual game to play in and have fun!

3. What is the point of Sonic in this world? Will there be an overall story arc with objectives?
So what you are going to do? Just aimlessly run around collecting rings and stumble on an occasional enemy / boss encounter here and there and that's it?

What made BOTW so successful, is that it nailed above 3 points to near perfection!
Amazing diverse open gameworld that felt alive and interesting. Depressing in a beautiful way due to the Apocalyptic story setting.. Creatures, enemies, towns and places with people to interact with.
Engaging story. Exploration that felt both engaging and rewarding with lots to discover. Etc.

I think this is what got people up in arms and protesting. With the game's 2022 slated release window and all they have to show for is an empty boring gameworld with Sonic running around collecting rings. That really doesn't bode well for the end result, if the game is supposed to release within a couple months.

I couldn't get thru more than 5 minutes of either video. Zzzzzzz