Footage From Sonic Frontiers' Cyber Space Stages Emerges From Gamescom

The more things change the more they stay the same. Looks like Sonic controls horribly as per usual.

Hopes are not high for these stages. The open world might be interesting, but these linear stages look about as interesting as Forces, which is not a good thing.

I wish the open world was as vibrant as the cyberspace levels. It's a shame because next to the Unreal realism, everything is just jarring. like a different game and comes accross like a franchise that doesn't know what it's doing, or what it wants to do.

I'm guessing the tweet clarifies it isn't them playing because of how badly they are playing... or is the character control really that bad in the game? Jumping onto the crate looked painful... and those side steps are horrible. I personally don't like the camera switch for the loops either - takes you out of the game/ loss of immersion.

I don't see the problem here. You have an open world, and then you have focused instances like the cyberspace stages. Kind of like Breath of the Wild's shrines.

This isn’t even the open world, so chances are the controls are a little tighter because there smaller stages. That said, the way the dude played was hard to watch lol.

Wow for him to run backwards to collect some extra rings, completely miss some grinds and still get an S Class? This game is going to be easy

Only 5 enemies in the whole level, what is going on? It's the same in all footage I've seen

Unfortunately these stages are the only major thing that have me worried for this game. They look too short, which is more like Sonic Forces than Sonic Generations or Sonic Unleashed.

Is it the controls suck, or the guy playing sucks? I'm hoping for the latter...

I’ll give the game the benefit of the doubt for now,because it still looks good, and assume that the person playing it wasn’t very good.

This kind of reminds me of the early levels of sonic adventure too. So rehash of rehash, let's charge em £70!

@Bunkerneath They set the S-Rank time to the maximum time allowed for this demo. Obviously the S-rank time will not be this easy to get in the final game.

Those cyber level looks and feels so empty and boring. There's literally only just one kind of enemy badnik in that entire Green Hill rehash. How many different enemy badniks are in Sonic Mania's version, about 5 or 6? Hopefully that's just a tutorial level and not the actual full meaty one. A full level should be longer, faster, harder, and litter with enemies galore.

This footage looks more like a Sonic game, which is nice.

controls look clunky - can't Sonic Team work on dynamic control sets, with a reduction in Sonic's jump/walk speed etc when he is active within close vicinity of blocks and items he would need to step on etc.....

Cautiously optimistic for Frontiers right now, but the homing attack is not all there. That full pause upon impact seems really flow-breaking.

@Sam_TSM Part of the problem with rehashing levels is that Green Hill has taken the iconic corkscrews from Emerald Hill and added them into the Green Hill motif. The reason why Green Hill and Chemical Plant get used so much is because most kids didn't beat Marble Zone, so you only have 2 zones for nostalgia. Emerald Hill, another Green Hill like stage. Okay, what about the next level? Chemical Plant Zone, the level where everyone drowned as a kid. I'd love to see more of Angel Island Zone, but when the game sold 4 million copies compared to Sonic 2's 7.55 million, and Sonic 1's 15 Million, it's sadly clear why the third game gets left on the chopping block.

Uninspired? Unengaging? 3D Sonic?

@Sam_TSM It does include pack ins, without pack ins, Sonic 2 sold 6 million iirc, going off of what I read years ago. I can't remember how well Sonic 1 sold by comparison, but a quick look on Wikipedia says that that by November 1992, the game had sold 4.5 million copies. By 1997, it had sold 14 million. Definitely a pack in title. Meanwhile, I double checked Sonic 2's numbers, and 6 million from cartridge sales, and about 1.55 million from pack in titles.

Sonic 3 might have sold better than 2 million roughly without S&K if Sonic Spinball wasn't released in November 1993, and Sonic CD was released at about the exact same time.

This looks better than the previous 'open zones' while on the flip side looks like dozens of other environments we have been in Sonic. Hopefully they can pull off some type of continuity and logic between them because of right now the open zones look so disjointed with the random floating platforms while they have smaller random Sonic-esque levels.

Looks super rad.

@Bunkerneath
The Ranking system actually isn’t implemented in the demo, it shows that 99 mins is enough for every rank at the moment.

@P-Man
They may be short, but they’re Sonic Generations & Sonic Unleashed level layouts. Game Informer also said that the later levels will be longer

@jamesm @Mattock1987 @RainbowGazelle @nocdaes @KindofaBigDeal
Most people who have played the game say that Sonic does control very well. There are also sliders to change default speed, acceleration, turning, etc; which could effect how clunky Sonic is to control.

I really like how the cyberspace stages are looking so far, the gameplay looks quite arcadey. I don’t care that they’re mostly returning locations, I just hope that there will be some locations from other games too, like Tropical Resort, Dragon Road, Kingdom Valley, and Sunset Heights.

@Pandy-the-Panda Whoa if the sliders thing is true, that’s a game changer for the series. If we can control the nuances of his speed it’ll make all the difference compared to past titles like SA & SA 2

@Pandy-the-Panda Oohhh, really? Sliders are a fantastic idea! Being able to fine-tune Sonic should help everyone find a suitable speed for them.

@Pandy-the-Panda Gotcha, thanks for the information.

This game looks worse and worse every time we see it. Sonic Team has been, is, and will continue to be a joke. Can we just get a decent port of Generations instead of this garbage?

@Mauzuri I had 0 expectations either, but Frontiers looking like a Sonic in Unreal Engine fan project still shocked me. Say what you will about Forces, but at least it looked like an actual Sonic game.

Becuz...that totally looks like space...🙄 Wow...lol not. Surprisingly more empty and linear than I was expecting. Sad. Too plain.

God, Sonic games all look the same and play like crap because they have to make him fast. So what happens? His platforming is garbage.

Sonic sucks. He's had 63 games and outside of some classic 2D games, all poorly rated. It's all bad level design, blind jumps and cheap deaths. But he goes Fast!! Yeah, that's all he does, all he's ever done.

How have they learned nothing from Miyamoto? Mario is 10x the mascot Sonic is, and always will be, with unique game play, high quality and masterful controls.

@Mauzuri Thats not what I said, at all 💀 Obviously Forces is ass. But the visuals are a million times better than what Frontiers has crapped out

@XXWeskerXX Have you even played one of the good 3d sonics? 💀