Megathread Sonic Frontiers (2022) | MT | General Discussion (DO NOT discuss leaks here please)

[StellarBlur]

5 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

I don't really care what he's done in the past. Frontiers looks interesting and it's been quite a while since Forces and Frontiers doesn't seem remotely connected to it. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until he gives me reason not to.

Despite my thoughts on Kishimoto, I'm still somewhat cautiously optimistic for the game. However, I'll form a more concrete opinion once we see gameplay. Perhaps Kishimoto sucked at linear level design and will prove to have better design sensibilities for open design.

[light-gaia]

Sega has no other choice but to release a good game now. Sonic is not just one of their IPs. Sonic is the face of Sega. If Sonic games are always bad, or always controversial, people associate the bad quality with Sega as a whole. And from the 60th campaign they did, Sega is clearly trying to become a more respected gaming company.

It's not like Sega is bad and always develop bad games, actually Sega is quite good, and they are one of the richest gaming companies (even though a lot of people don't know that, and think they are irrelevant). So, in order to earn the trust of both the audience, and the investors a like they NEED to get Sonic right now.

What would they say in the next statement to their investors?

"We have one of the biggest and most beloved gaming franchises of all time, but we only release bad or budget mediocre games, please keep investing in us"

[Sonictrainer]

Sonic Channel's Twitter Account has updated their header with a image of Sonic and a giant ring showing some of the Starfall Islands.

Is the Sonic Art new?

[phobs]

3 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

Sonic Channel's Twitter Account has updated their header with a image of Sonic and a giant ring showing some of the Starfall Islands.

Is the Sonic Art new?

Nope, this is old render from 2017

[CertifiedNobody]

12 hours ago, NoKaine said:

A lot of aspects seem like they can't be traversed without a mechanic like that, so I'd bet. Might be what leaks mean when they say "Lost World gameplay."

It'd also be emulating a big part of Breath of the Wild's gameplay (i.e., climbing) too.

I completely ignored this but what leaks mentioned Lost World gameplay? Are they legitimate?

[FirePheonix]

3 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

I completely ignored this but what leaks mentioned Lost World gameplay? Are they legitimate?

This one mentioned that it was something between Lost World and Adventure.

 

[phobs]

For everyone who has been interested in localization for Sonic Frontiers, the team is going to make announcement related to that next week

 

[Baconjack]

On 1/5/2022 at 9:16 AM, light-gaia said:

Sega has no other choice but to release a good game now. Sonic is not just one of their IPs. Sonic is the face of Sega. If Sonic games are always bad, or always controversial, people associate the bad quality with Sega as a whole. And from the 60th campaign they did, Sega is clearly trying to become a more respected gaming company.

It's not like Sega is bad and always develop bad games, actually Sega is quite good, and they are one of the richest gaming companies (even though a lot of people don't know that, and think they are irrelevant). So, in order to earn the trust of both the audience, and the investors a like they NEED to get Sonic right now.

I simply don't see Sonic products made by Sega in house divisions ever being good without a major rethink. After Forces, Sonic Team needed to be completely blown up and reset in order for a game they make to be successful, and I've seen no concrete proof that's happened, given most of the old timers from the Unleashed-Generations era are still around. The same ideas have festered amongst the same group of people for too long. Two flops in a row calls for the slate to be wiped clean.

Sega is a 2nd tier publisher at best. Comparing it to the likes of EA, Take Two, ActiBlizz, Tencent, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft is inaccurate and they are nowhere even remotely in the same league as any of those. When has a Sega owned studio ever made a legit AAA grade product in the last 10, even 15 years? Its most successful product in the last 10 years was produced on a tiny budget. Sega has an arcade business which none of these companies have, sure, but even that is losing ground to companies like Raw Thrills, and they are also making plenty of money off selling slot machines which isn't even relevant to the game industry at all.

Quote

"We have one of the biggest and most beloved gaming franchises of all time, but we only release bad or budget mediocre games, please keep investing in us"

They don't even need to with the games. Sega was able to sweep Forces under the rug because of Mania overperforming, and the warm reception to Sonic Movie 2's trailer will be enough to keep investors happy. Compare that to what happened with Lost World and Boom. I'm sure that would be different if both those variables didn't exist.

[Sega DogTagz]

2 hours ago, Baconjack said:

When has a Sega owned studio ever made a legit AAA grade product in the last 10, even 15 years? Its most successful product in the last 10 years was produced on a tiny budget.

 

Persona 5 Royal bro.

and lets not pretend Sega is some second rate clown show. They put out some of the best games when they have all their ducks in a row. If you go by meta-critic scores, they literally are the best publisher from 2020 (good stuff happens when there are no Sonic games to drag down the scores lol)

 

https://screenrant.com/sega-metacritic-best-game-publisher-year-2020/

[Graystripe2000]

1 hour ago, Sega DogTagz said:

 

Persona 5 Royal bro.

Yakuza, too.

[KingMario05]

5 hours ago, Baconjack said:

When has a Sega owned studio ever made a legit AAA grade product in the last 10, even 15 years?

Alien: Isolation, all ofYakuza, Persona 5/5 Royale, Shin Megami Tensei 5, several Total Wars, Judgement, Lost Judgement... 

The problem isn't Sega, dude. It's Sonic Team we need to worry about.

[BubbleButt TV]

On 1/2/2022 at 2:17 PM, Blue Blood said:

A bit of clarification is necessary. Senoue doesn't confirm he's working on Frontiers in any capacity at all in that quote, and the way that it's written in the article sounds like conjecture from the author. Ohtani has since posted this on Twitter:

He's not specific about what might not be true, but the only news in the article is about Senoue's involvement in Frontiers. There are other small inaccuracies such as when Crush 40 was formed, and some confusing wording that implies that Smash Bros is a SEGA game. Take it as you will.

Senoue hasn't been actively involved in the soundtracks of many recent Sonic games, usually just taking advisory or technical roles rather than producing, composing and performing music himself. As much as I want to see him return to score another big mainline entry for the first time since Generations, Ohtani has been the sound director for Sonic games almost consistently since 2006. He also worked on the music for the GA trailer. I expect Ohtani to be the lead man on the soundtrack until we're told otherwise. 

sorry for derailing the thread a bit but did we ever get any update on this? I'm still confused if Jun is working on Frontiers or not

[Blue Blood]

6 minutes ago, BubbleButt TV said:

sorry for derailing the thread a bit but did we ever get any update on this? I'm still confused if Jun is working on Frontiers or not

Not that I'm aware of. Just default to the position you had before this article came out: we don't know anything about the sound staff for this game yet. 

Ohtani has posted this and that's it as far as I know:

 

[BubbleButt TV]

ah okay, I clicked on the original article tweet to see if they had updated it or not and so many people were just replying with "bruh" so I thought maybe something new happened lol

 

[AdventChild]

5 hours ago, KingMario05 said:

Alien: Isolation, all ofYakuza, Persona 5/5 Royale, Shin Megami Tensei 5, several Total Wars, Judgement, Lost Judgement... 

 

And Streets of Rage 4.

[Kazhnuz]

6 hours ago, KingMario05 said:

Alien: Isolation, all ofYakuza, Persona 5/5 Royale, Shin Megami Tensei 5, several Total Wars, Judgement, Lost Judgement... 

The problem isn't Sega, dude. It's Sonic Team we need to worry about.

And between these games there are a lot of mediocre games, tbh.

SEGA's issues with their flagship IP show that they are the problem. If SEGA wanted the Sonic Team to make better game, they would give to the IP more budget, more people on the team, more power and improve the team management. I would say that SEGA show that they didn't care that much about Sonic's quality (maybe because Sonic manage to perform well and most often better than the other better games :') That's maybe a big part of why the issue continue, because the serie keep selling a lot).

If you look at SEGA CS1 games list, you'll see that except recently with the two Monkey Ball remakes, they've been mostly on Yakuza for the last few years. If you look at SEGA CS2 games list for the last few years, you'll see that there is Sonic, Puyo Puyo, Sakura Wars, the Sonic JO games and the official JO games...

( I don't count Valkyria Chronicles 4, it's more a SEGA CS3 games, before they were fused with SEGA CS2 and CS1, so it would be unfair to use it to criticize SEGA's management here… even if dissolving CS3 after VC4 is kinda suprising with how good the game is, but eh, SEGA )

 

So yes, the problem is SEGA too, maybe even more than just Sonic Team (even if they have their fault too, for instance bad ideas are their call, even if they have to deal with external factor for that, like other teams). Because the situation is under their responsibilities, and that SEGA's management is shitty.

That some good games happens doesn't mean that the problem "isn't SEGA", especially when SEGA's bad management is quite known.

 

Now let see if Sonic Studio having been started, and SEGA CS2 not having pulled a new game since 2019 will help with Frontiers quality.

[MH MD]

8 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

And between these games there are a lot of mediocre games, tbh.

Like any publisher, really

the amount of good games they have released is too many, more than most other publishers, and if you see the annual Metacretic ranking of publishers, SEGA is consistently on the top, more than any other publisher really, they are one of the most consistent publishers in recent year, alongside capcom.

 

14 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

If SEGA wanted the Sonic Team to make better game, they would give to the IP more budget, more people on the team, more power and improve the team management.

and they just did, they made Sonic Team bigger with the restructure of studios, this kind of project requires a lot of budget and resources, they even delayed the game a whole year, which actually means more budget and cost to this project.

whether it's good or not remains to be seen of course, but purely from a management point of view, SEGA did the right thing here, the rest depends on Sonic Team.

[Blue Blood]

3 hours ago, AdventChild said:

And Streets of Rage 4.

Streets of Rage 4 was not made or published by SEGA, and was not Triple A either. It's an indie game, using a licensed SEGA IP. The term "Triple A" is nebulous, but basically refers to the budget size of the game. It doesn't have anything to do with the quality or reception of a game. SEGA produces Triple A games, but Frontiers is probably going to be first Sonic game of that kind since Unleashed and 06.

[Kazhnuz]

9 hours ago, MH MD said:

Like any publisher, really

the amount of good games they have released is too many, more than most other publishers, and if you see the annual Metacretic ranking of publishers, SEGA is consistently on the top, more than any other publisher really, they are one of the most consistent publishers in recent year, alongside capcom.

I agree that it's better now, I was really more talking about the whole era where we still had Sonic games :') Since the recent years, it seems to have improved, and I'm waiting to see if it have affected positively the IP... and if it'll still keep being that way, or if another issue will come.

9 hours ago, MH MD said:

and they just did, they made Sonic Team bigger with the restructure of studios, this kind of project requires a lot of budget and resources, they even delayed the game a whole year, which actually means more budget and cost to this project.

whether it's good or not remains to be seen of course, but purely from a management point of view, SEGA did the right thing here, the rest depends on Sonic Team.

And I agree with that, it's why I talked about how SEGA CS2 did not make any games since 2019, which might be that more people have been put on Sonic Frontiers. SEGA's management seems to have improved, now I'll wait to see see how it improve the game, what issues remain to be seen, and how the potential changes in the Sonic Team (like the fusion of CS2 and parts of CS3, and the creation of Sonic Studio) have affected the IP.

( Or if even new issues arise, which is also a possibility )

[BubbleButt TV]

I wonder what this super game will be

do you think there's any chance it could be Sonic Frontiers?

[CertifiedNobody]

3 hours ago, BubbleButt TV said:

I wonder what this super game will be

do you think there's any chance it could be Sonic Frontiers?

Definitely not Sonic Frontiers, but Sega definitely seems to be trying to become a AAA publisher.

[KingMario05]

4 hours ago, BubbleButt TV said:

I wonder what this super game will be

do you think there's any chance it could be Sonic Frontiers?

LOL, no. This is probably Creative Assembly's new online shooter, which I'm sure Sega wants to use to beat Bungie, 343, Treyarch et al. And you need a massive budget to compete in that field these days, so I just hope it can still turn a profit by, y'know, being good.

(That's not saying Sega's giving nothing to Frontiers, of course. It's just that that particular budget would probably be a lot less, like $100 mil.)

[expansivelovestories]

5 hours ago, BubbleButt TV said:

I wonder what this super game will be

do you think there's any chance it could be Sonic Frontiers?

i remember reading about the "super game strategy" at some point.  i do feel as though there will be new open zones available for multiple years with Frontiers!! 

Like a Sonic 3 & Knuckles 30th anniversary DLC that could include open-style remakes of some of the zones, that feels very plausible!!

[light-gaia]

On 1/9/2022 at 8:12 AM, Baconjack said:

I simply don't see Sonic products made by Sega in house divisions ever being good without a major rethink. After Forces, Sonic Team needed to be completely blown up and reset in order for a game they make to be successful, and I've seen no concrete proof that's happened, given most of the old timers from the Unleashed-Generations era are still around. The same ideas have festered amongst the same group of people for too long. Two flops in a row calls for the slate to be wiped clean.

Sega is a 2nd tier publisher at best. Comparing it to the likes of EA, Take Two, ActiBlizz, Tencent, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft is inaccurate and they are nowhere even remotely in the same league as any of those. When has a Sega owned studio ever made a legit AAA grade product in the last 10, even 15 years? Its most successful product in the last 10 years was produced on a tiny budget. Sega has an arcade business which none of these companies have, sure, but even that is losing ground to companies like Raw Thrills, and they are also making plenty of money off selling slot machines which isn't even relevant to the game industry at all.

They don't even need to with the games. Sega was able to sweep Forces under the rug because of Mania overperforming, and the warm reception to Sonic Movie 2's trailer will be enough to keep investors happy. Compare that to what happened with Lost World and Boom. I'm sure that would be different if both those variables didn't exist.

This is not true, Sega is bigger than EA, Activision and even Square Enix. Sega is only behind Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft in the rank of the richest video game companies of the world.

Also, Sonic Team is only one of the studios owned by Sega. Your post only has proved my point: no matter how good Sega is doing, if Sonic is not, people treat like Sega as whole is bad.

 

[Kazhnuz]

"Sonic Team" for a long time wasn't even really a studio, it's a team inside a studio that is SEGA CS2. Now things might have changed, but SEGA CS2 was a bit their "catch-all" studio for a long time (the common things about CS2 games in the five last years were using the HE2, as seemingly even Puyo Puyo use it).

Now, since Sonic Studio exists, we have some sort of vertical management existing specifically for Sonic games (and we can certainly thanks the Sonic Boom fiasco for that XD). Now I hope that it'll help avoiding some of the issues, especially the "too many cook" one (but it might remove some filter that the IP had).

Even if I would like seeing SEGA use more their other IP, I feel that for Sonic, they kinda need a studio that do mostly that + not too much other things, a bit like Yakuza. Especially with how well Sonic do compared to their other IP. (Even if they shouldn't force the devs to do only that too :'))