IGN First - Sonic Frontiers: Combat Gameplay

[Soniman]

10 minutes ago, JezMM said:

I really wish they had given us some combat music, it's amazing how having that chill track playing makes these fights seem arbitrary and devoid of meaning.

Honestly it feels like another classic Sonic Team overrcorrection to the criticism of the Werehog battle music and instead of just composing a more appropriate less blaring track for combat encounters they just had the same mellow music playing through all of it, it sucks and it lacks energy 

[JezMM]

Just now, Soniman said:

Honestly it feels like another classic Sonic Team overrcorrection to the criticism of the Werehog battle music and instead of just composing a more appropriate less blaring track for combat encounters they just had the same mellow music playing through all of it, it sucks and it lacks energy 

I don't think this is necessarily the music that will play during combat in-game, it's the same track as the previous video and plays continously throughout the whole footage even though multiple scenes are shown.  But it's still a bad decision that affects the reception to the footage.

[Kuzu]

I'm gonna have so much fun coming up with combo theory.

[JezMM]

4 minutes ago, ZERO_ninja said:

This looks dreadfully dull. Damage sponges that take way too long to kill with one note simplistic attacks that don't seem like they could ever be a threat.

I'm giving the lack of attacks the benefit of the doubt as this is clearly an early area of the game.  But it's still a bad choice to show that and ONLY that as the first impression of the game (and even then, BotW's combat manages to be engaging even in the early game).

One thing I am worried about though is how much these feel like random encounters.  All the enemies are fought in wide open, flat areas where the environment appears to have no bearing on the combat whatsoever.  As I feared, it seems like the platforming and the combat are going to be kept at arm's length, and those of us who have been waiting for a new 3D Sonic platformer are going to have to suffer through 5 minutes of Sonic Team's bland attempt to ape open world action adventure games for every 5 minutes of platforming we get to enjoy.  And because dumping the same enemy in front of you over and over again is somehow considered acceptable in game design but dumping the same platforming geometry in front of you over and over again isn't, I think we know what choice they're going to make to cheaply pad out the playtime whenever they need to.

God, let the full release prove me wrong.  I want it to.

[Wraith]

There are a few interesting ideas here, like creating a whirlwind to reveal the underbelly of an enemy, the various waves of enemy attacks and projectiles being interesting to dodge, Sonic himself having a ranged attack etc. But even the most basic enemies being damage sponges means you're just repeating the same motions over and over even after you've already "solved" the encounter. Destroying enemies in heroes used similar mechanics and their lower health made it a much smoother process.

That's right, this game has me complimenting Sonic Heroes. That's where we're at.

Needless to say I'm not impressed. The animation complaints I had from the footage earlier in the week are pairing with dull, repetitive mashing to paint a dull picture. The spin cycle is nowhere near elegant enough for the game to lean on it so much during combat either. Every time we've seen it it looks clunky.
 

[Soniman]

I will say that so far none of the combat encounters seem mandatory, looks like you can farm loot or exp or whatever but they’re not “progress blockers” which has been the kiss of death for every combat focused Sonic title prior

[StaticMania]

Them not being mandatory makes it even worse that they take so long...

I don't think one-hit k.o. enemies are the solution, that's an equally bad option...

But they didn't need so much health, those medium sized enemies...

[GentlemanX]

I'm not really into combat mechanics, so giving Sonic so many different options in how to fight foes isn't really appealing to me. It reminds me a bit of how Heroes did enemies, but that just reminds me of how monotonous fighting enemies could get in that game and this looks like it'll take even longer. In SA2, even when you had to stop and fight a more complicated enemy like a P-100 or Guard Type Artificial Chaos, as you got better you could pick up on ways to speed up the fight rather than prolong it. So having to stop and fight an enemy for this long isn't really what I'm looking for in a Sonic game - though I realize that's just me griping about the change in genre rather than an objective look at the combat itself.

There are some things that didn't seem intuitive to me, like how with the boss you lifted up its leg and then were expected to attack the foot. It didn't look like there was anything indicating that the foot was a viable target for an attack. The person playing also got hurt a lot when combo attacking enemies like the one with the saw blade, making me a bit worried you can't stop attacking when the attack is getting closer. Lastly, I'm not really a fan of the speed boosts going up the boss's arm. Why is that there? Couldn't Sonic just run up the arm using his normal speed? He didn't have any problem going up jagged terrain or vertical walls in the gameplay showcase. Why introduce another new mechanic to gain speed? Just for spectacle? I think it'd be more fun to run up the arm on your own.

Also minor note, but did Sonic's voice change during the presentation? While fighting the shielded enemies in the grass it sounded like Smith, but at the end with the boss it sounded like Kanemaru. Most Sonic games let you change spoken language, but it seemed a little weird to showcase both like that.

[VO.SUPER]

2 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Them not being mandatory makes it even worse that they take so long...

I don't think one-hit k.o. enemies are the solution, that's an equally bad option...

But they didn't need so much health, those medium sized enemies...

That is in theory what leveling up is meant to rectify. And if this is a skill tree, I'm sure there will be alternative methods to gaining EXP than just grinding out enemies. That's just pretty basic design.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Man, that eternal low energy piano music droning trough everything is getting to me.
Sonic Frontiers? More like Sonic Melanchonia.

Do we learn how the rings work? Same as always or like part of a healthbar?
And seems the combat is "Circle around enemy"- "Cutscene happens where Sonic flies in the air" - "Mash button" - "Cutscene of slick moves"- "Fall to the ground ,repeat 20 times"
Hmm. Not feeling it.

Titan fight looked slightly more interesting, tough.

[Diogenes]

Less offensively bad than the movement/exploration, but it's mostly just dull. The spin cycle is the only thing that even approaches being interesting, but it's not enough to save it. Otherwise it just seems like button mashing and bad special attack animations against spongey enemies. The titan fight was a little better, once it started throwing in the repulsion rings along with the dash rings, and being able to spin cycle its feet and attack them instead of solely attacking the top, but it's just...not enough.

[Bobnik]

This combat looked better than what I expected. There's still a severe lack of context in the way of not having a HUD, no explanation of the systems of the game (as in, what does the potential skill tree look like, will it have more unlockable moves, what are these things we're collecting, how do you activate finishers, etc.), but it's probably the best combat a Sonic game ever had (or 2nd best if we count Werehog), which doesn't say a lot, but it's a compliment I guess.

The main complaint is the exact same I had with exploration video - the animations are just terrible, and because of that it kinda ruins the entire thing. For example, the finishers just teleport you so far away from the enemies without any kind of visual effects, it's very amateur-looking. The dodges look pretty jerky, the Kick tornado thing still looks very unfinished, I can go on. I cannot believe how much of a hit character animation has taken, it all looks so stiff, so unnatural, so amateurish. Did they have no animators in the entire company that could at least polish them up a bit? What happened?

I can't comment on the sponginess of the enemies, I usually don't feel the same way others feel when it comes to the enemies' health.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

As I said in the other topic, the impressions I got here is that it was just fine. In fact, I’d say that there’s a few good changes here compared to previous outings (The transition to combat is much more seamless, generally faster paced combat, some decent enough flair with the super moves). I wouldn’t say it was super stellar or anything, but it was fine.

But again, what I primarily got is they need to get someone better to play this game. It happened with the open world showing where the player would randomly slow down to a snail’s pace, or constantly stop to look around, or just make otherwise weird moves, and it was exactly the same here, if not worse.

There’s several times where the player is shown not to be exploiting enemy weaknesses (using the loop on the umbrella like enemy), keeps trying to smash into enemies during their invulnerable state over and over again, not making particularly good usage of the dodge mechanic, other than spamming it for like 5 seconds at the start, misjumping several times, running into enemies, and even stopping the fight randomly for a second or two just to look around. There’s even a point where the player pulls out a quicker air variation of the loop, and instead of showing us how it could be used for combos, instead they dropped to the ground and paused for a second as if they were shocked by it.

Don’t get me wrong, this was still pretty eh to me, and I’m not throwing up any defences because this still looked a bit rough, but this player just is not helping matters at all, he’s making the combat look far more drawn out and boring than it is, at least it did to me. If more combos were happening and we were seeing the action occur non stop instead of all the random stops and stupid moves, I feel like I’d have a stronger idea of how I actually feel about it.

That said. I think it’s time they show us a level, or a set piece, or something. I’d like to see how all the elements of the game compile together and work in a level, rather than the approach of splitting it all of that we have right now. 

[JezMM]

8 minutes ago, Soniman said:

I will say that so far none of the combat encounters seem mandatory, looks like you can farm loot or exp or whatever but they’re not “progress blockers” which has been the kiss of death for every combat focused Sonic title prior

Sadly not good enough really.  When you're choosing to avoid enemies for the reason that it is not fun to fight them, the combat system has failed.

[StaticMania]

1 minute ago, VO.SUPER said:

That is in theory what leveling up is meant to rectify. And if this is a skill tree, I'm sure there will be alternative methods to gaining EXP than just grinding out enemies. That's just pretty basic design.

They don't seem like much of threat in service of the amount of health they have...

So that's not especially good design here, starting game enemies aren't damage sponges...

The enemies in early areas with high health are there to stop you and make you want to level up for when you come back (like a mid boss or level check)...that's not the case here, they're just out in the open & incredibly easy.

[Soniman]

17 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Them not being mandatory makes it even worse that they take so long...

I don't think one-hit k.o. enemies are the solution, that's an equally bad option...

But they didn't need so much health, those medium sized enemies...

This is not a defense at all but I can imagine sonic getting more powerful moves, combos, strength etc as the game goes on

Quote

Sadly not good enough really.  When you're choosing to avoid enemies for the reason that it is not fun to fight them, the combat system has failed.

Nah even if the combat was good I’d not want it to be mandatory in a Sonic game outside the obvious major encounters or any potential missions

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Greatsong1

Personally I still find the combat animations pretty stiff to say the least. On the other hand some of the attacks are quite cool.

[Kuzu]

The Werehog had a mostly competent combo system so I'm curious where this goes.

I know most people (rightfully) hate combat in Sonic games, but I'm a fighting game player at heart so this is starting to spark the combo theorists in me. It will probably not be good, but I'm way more interested than I was than the showcase from the other day.

[VO.SUPER]

2 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

They don't seem like much of threat in service of the amount of health they have...

So that's not especially good design here, starting game enemies aren't damage sponges...

The enemies in early areas with high health are there to stop you and make you want to level up for when you come back (like a mid boss or level check)...that's not the case here, they're just out in the open & incredibly easy.

These enemies barely look like they took any time. Just getting a few hits in doesn't necessarily make them damage sponges especially when in the past it's been either "1-hit dead", "5 hits dead"

And even in games like Breath of the wild, the starting enemies still took you several hits to defeat unless you found alternative methods to combating them. And well, in this game's case, you don't have to fight them until hopefully the game gives you better tools to speed up the combat.

[StaticMania]

1 minute ago, VO.SUPER said:

These enemies barely look like they took any time.

They take as much time as they need to, hush.

Since it was just one at a time though, that's a fair bit of repetitive action.

[LegoFedora]

Well, it looks more interesting than the exploration aspect that's for sure. Still not too incredibly sold yet though, most of these enemies seem to just be "hit a few times, run away, then go back and hit them some more". The mini-boss looks more interesting with how the speed rings work, but looks too slow where it just kind of hands free hits to the player with the massive windup for attacks.

As for Sonic's attack animations; no. I'm not feeling it. I like that he actually punches, kicks, and does that tornado/zig zag thing now but none of these moves have any oomph to them. Every time Sonic attacks he just snaps into the final frame almost, it doesn't look right. Running around enemies to disable shields is a neat idea, but the enemies barely look like they attack so it just goes back to the "do specific move to deal damage, do some combos, then do the move again and repeat until dead".

[Razule]

11 minutes ago, Razule said:

It's alright. Looks like it'll become repetitive after the first few times though. That one move where he teleports way back and then dashes from side to side looks weird though.

 

[ZERO_ninja]

I also find it pretty alarming that either, they were so proud of a couple of the really poor looking fights that they demoed them twice each, or that there's so little enemy variety in each area that they felt they had to demo the early game enemies repeatedly to have a decent runtime.

[light-gaia]

Same impressions I have from the other trailers: I like the gameplay, but the animations are stiff and look unfinished

[Red Hot Jack]

29 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Them not being mandatory makes it even worse that they take so long...

I don't think one-hit k.o. enemies are the solution, that's an equally bad option...

But they didn't need so much health, those medium sized enemies...

I agree they take too much time to be killed off, but not all of them, the third enemy type was quicker, there is a lot of variety and some strategy in there.

The fact that they are optional means you can skip them, no problem for me, on the other hand I find it a plus.

I still don't think combat in Sonic is for me but it's okay, I don't like how it literally stops mid air, I don't like wasting too much time in combat.