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

[StaticMania]

You can finish most games in a day...

As a platformer the only thing that will make Sonic longer is bloat & padding.

[Indigo Rush]

What prevented me from beating games like Sonic 2 or 3&K in a day was lack of skill and familiarity with the levels. The whole deal with arcade-like games like that back in the day was repeat play and replay value to get your money's worth; the main reason Classic Sonic games appear so short to us is because, well, they are, but they're 30 year old games that we're all really good at now. 

Same principle translates to newer short Sonic games. Colors is a short one, but I didn't beat it in a day the first time I got it. I didn't even beat Mania in a day. Sonic doesn't need artificial padding to feel bigger, it needs solid replay value and engaging gameplay (and narrative when applicable) you'll want to play over and over. 

 

Spoiler

I think it's also worth noting that you can beat "big epic" games like Sonic Adventure or Unleashed in a day too, if you're just as skilled and familiar with them.

Sonic Frontiers will likely do the big open world RPG thing with side quests and that rumoured skill-tree nonsense, which likely means tons of mindless EXP grinding. Not to invalidate that as a legit game design, I know some people love that, but that's not exactly Sonic the Hedgehog's sort of jam. 

As time's gone on since the official reveal, my anticipation is rock bottom. What I am looking out for is a good sense of movement and fun factor over how much "game" there is. I don't expect Sonic Team to ever deliver that in 3D, but if the game looks fun to run around in, I'll be invested. 

[BubbleButt TV]

my main fear is that Sonic Team will focus too much on padding the game with pointless EXP stuff and not enough on basic movement options

Imagine if you have to unlock Spindash and rolling lol

I saw this video and for some reason it makes me wonder what Frontiers could be like if it actually has rolling physics. Especially the part at the end where he launches off a big ramp

[Sega DogTagz]

Even if the open world is chocked full of side activities and quests, the vast majority of those are more likely to be optional. 

Games of these nature can be taken at whatever pace you want to go at. There is usually little in the way of stopping you from chasing the main objective or deciding to take a detour to uncover everything you can on the local map. You'll get what you put in.

 

You can blaze through a huge game like horizon zero dawn in less than 15 hours if you really wanted to. In the same light, you can play for 75 plus and still not make it to the end credits. Open world games have a different calling card to longevity than platformers do. Frontiers If it is well designed should be able to take advantage of both. 

 

[Johnster4]

17 hours ago, StaticMania said:

It doesn't have to.

It does, casuals don't care about game series enough to want a decant amount of content and they don't know what they want, they will just play it for a week and not think about it, and leave while long time fans like myself will be left with a game that doesn't satisfy us in terms of content, gameplay, and story. I am willing to give examples outside of Sonic that prove my point.

[JezMM]

44 minutes ago, Johnster4 said:

It does, casuals don't care about game series enough to want a decant amount of content and they don't know what they want, they will just play it for a week and not think about it, and leave while long time fans like myself will be left with a game that doesn't satisfy us in terms of content, gameplay, and story. I am willing to give examples outside of Sonic that prove my point.

I think StaticMania was suggesting that perhaps you are not the target audience of Sonic anymore.  SEGA doesn't care if you buy the new Sonic - they have other people who will buy it instead.

Which is sad of course because competently designed long-running series games manage to achieve universal appeal. Against all odds, Breath of the Wild was a severely punishing game that still managed to be appealing to players of all skill levels through good design.  But I don't expect SEGA to create Breath of the Wild.

 

Of course it's way... way too early to really discuss how Frontiers will play out in this regard.

[ComeAsYouAre]

1 hour ago, JezMM said:

Against all odds, Breath of the Wild was a severely punishing game that still managed to be appealing to players of all skill levels through good design

I beat it with a Broken Controller lmao 

 

 

[Kuzu]

1 hour ago, JezMM said:

I think StaticMania was suggesting that perhaps you are not the target audience of Sonic anymore.  SEGA doesn't care if you buy the new Sonic - they have other people who will buy it instead.

Which is sad of course because competently designed long-running series games manage to achieve universal appeal. Against all odds, Breath of the Wild was a severely punishing game that still managed to be appealing to players of all skill levels through good design.  But I don't expect SEGA to create Breath of the Wild.

 

Of course it's way... way too early to really discuss how Frontiers will play out in this regard.

Eeeeeehhhhhh....

[ComeAsYouAre]

I fixed my switch controller since then and I had more issues with Witcher 3 Port regular difficulty mode than I did with BOTW in spite of my Controller being fixed while playing the former

[Wraith]

The game is easy to beat by design, but there are challenges within the game that reward long term investment and mastery.

[Sega DogTagz]

I wouldn't call BoTW difficult by any means. Maybe a steeper learning curve on the combat than your average zelda game, but as soon as you get a handle on combat flow you're fine.

 

[Coz483]

17 hours ago, Indigo Rush said:

What prevented me from beating games like Sonic 2 or 3&K in a day was lack of skill and familiarity with the levels. The whole deal with arcade-like games like that back in the day was repeat play and replay value to get your money's worth; the main reason Classic Sonic games appear so short to us is because, well, they are, but they're 30 year old games that we're all really good at now. 

Same principle translates to newer short Sonic games. Colors is a short one, but I didn't beat it in a day the first time I got it. I didn't even beat Mania in a day. Sonic doesn't need artificial padding to feel bigger, it needs solid replay value and engaging gameplay (and narrative when applicable) you'll want to play over and over. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I think it's also worth noting that you can beat "big epic" games like Sonic Adventure or Unleashed in a day too, if you're just as skilled and familiar with them.

Sonic Frontiers will likely do the big open world RPG thing with side quests and that rumoured skill-tree nonsense, which likely means tons of mindless EXP grinding. Not to invalidate that as a legit game design, I know some people love that, but that's not exactly Sonic the Hedgehog's sort of jam. 

As time's gone on since the official reveal, my anticipation is rock bottom. What I am looking out for is a good sense of movement and fun factor over how much "game" there is. I don't expect Sonic Team to ever deliver that in 3D, but if the game looks fun to run around in, I'll be invested. 

I beat almost all short games (4-16 hours) in a week because I either don't like playing them for long, or just aren't as good at them yet.

Surprised some people think frontiers will be over 10 hours at most. I mean it's a Sonic game, unless the extra hours were just extra content then it wouldn't make sense since the target audience is kids.

[StaticMania]

Kids won't really care how long a game is...

[FlameStream]

3 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Kids won't really care how long a game is...

That is not quite so true; There are so many games out there that they won't help but to compare. A big factor about value proposition is length. And it stings so much more as kid if you bought the similarity priced short game yourself.

[StaticMania]

A game being longer than 10 hours isn't a problem for a kid is what I meant...

[Coz483]

5 hours ago, StaticMania said:

A game being longer than 10 hours isn't a problem for a kid is what I meant...

I mean, I wouldn't mind it as a kid, but I know a lot of old friends hated longer games because it's "boring."

[ZERO_ninja]

5 hours ago, FlameStream said:

A big factor about value proposition is length.

It really did sneak up on me one day that this became the predominant way to judge a game's value to so many and I will never understand it. So many long games that people champion how great the "value for money" is I'll play and get so tired of how drawn out the game is with nothing but recycled content. For me the value is in how valuable I found that experience regardless of length, Metroid Dread was my favourite game of last year, it's not long but the content of that 9 hours was extremely valuable to me.

Not that I'm broadly saying long games are bad, my favourite game of this year so far is Elden Ring and I don't expect that to change. That said, one of the complaints I have with Elden Ring is how repetitive it can be in places and how much recycled content there is. I'd probably like it more with some of that trimmed out and I'd actually certainly have liked the game less if I'd done more of the optional stuff than I did because I really did not find a lot of it valuable.

Also seems that only video games are judged like this, nobody is talking about the value for money to time ratio for going to the cinema to see Sonic 2, even though the cost of the cinema for less than 2 hours entertainment works out really badly by the usual money to time ratio people require of video games.

[ComeAsYouAre]

I mean, Time to Price Ratio is a huge topic in Hotel and Travels from my own real life experience

[ZERO_ninja]

1 hour ago, ComeAsYouAre said:

I mean, Time to Price Ratio is a huge topic in Hotel and Travels from my own real life experience

I think what's important in a creative medium should be a bit different compared to what's important in temporary accommodation.

[BubbleButt TV]

we're coming up on the one year anniversary since Frontiers was originally teased. I wonder if they'll plan another surprise Sonic Central this week 

[ComeAsYouAre]

On 5/22/2022 at 9:42 PM, ZERO_ninja said:

I think what's important in a creative medium should be a bit different compared to what's important in temporary accommodation.

Games are kinda expensive enough that the Price is going to be taken into account 

[ZERO_ninja]

1 hour ago, ComeAsYouAre said:

Games are kinda expensive enough that the Price is going to be taken into account 

Yeah, they are, (though often less expensive than they were in older generations) and I think talking about the price is fair. But I think there are better ways to judge the value of entertainment than length. I'd much rather pay full price for Metroid Dread for a fantastic 9 hours experience than pay full price for Assassins Creed to get a middling 100+ hours experience. To me the value is in how much I enjoyed what was there, not how long it took me.

And again, cinema is really expensive for what it is, if we judged Sonic 2 film by the standard people do video game length it was awful value for money.

[Iko]

In the recent years I started to judge games by replay value. I realized this during the Wii times, but I gradually became more convinced of this over time and still do.

A game like Zelda Ocarina of Time is a masterpiece, but I played it only once, maybe twice in my entire life, and I feel little incentive in going back and revisiting it. Other smaller games which can be completed in one hour and half or a little more, I replayed them so many times that in total I may have spent hundreds of hours in them, and still revisit them from time to time. Those games for me have way more value than a very good game that I play once and never again.

[Razule]

The cartoonier look of the movie characters in the new short made me think about how much better the game characters would look if they had more fur detail in Frontiers.

 

[Scritch the Cat]

3 minutes ago, Razule said:

The cartoonier look of the movie characters in the new short made me think about how much better the game characters would look if they had more fur detail in Frontiers.

 

Incidentally, aren't movie Sonic's eyes blue in the actual movies, as opposed to the green here?