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Sonic Frontiers Leaks & Spoilers Thread - PLEASE READ OP


Sean

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I wouldn't say a reboot is coming. More like the next level and big change. All the characters talk about going on some big journey to change themselves and how different they'll be after Sonic finally sees them again later. Even Knuckles finally feels ready to leave Angel Island for awhile. The way I see it, if a change does happen, it's gonna be the equivalent of Classic to Adventure where everything from before happened but now evryone just looks a little different. Probably something like a timeskip, which sort of ties into all the official ages getting scrapped.

The game felt like it was proudly and loudly stating "Yes, everything is canon and all of it matters. No, we're not ignoring or dropping anything from before anymore. Yes, we're also moving forward with all of that in mind." At least, that's how it felt to me, anyways.

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Not gonna lie, it feels like they’re setting up for something huge. Then again, so did the CG teaser for Sonic Forces. Womp Womp, perhaps. But perhaps not…

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I am just thankful we FINALLY got a decent story that is just another comedy roundup hour. I for one am glad they pulled in Ian. Showing Sonic can work in a a more mature story line without just needing to be numbed down just cause some see him as a cartoon and thus needs to be more whimsical in his telling of sunshine and such.

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Frontiers actually did have a fair amount of jokes, and I think most of them landed.

This shows that an overall serious Sonic plot can still have enough levity to not feel overly grim and dour the whole time. I think Flynn has always been really good at keeping a nice balance.

Frontiers is a lot more grounded than the Pontaff games tonally, but I don't think we're ever going back to Shadow/06-style storytelling again, and thank god for that.

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So finally, is there a "hidden" final boss in "Hard mode" (since people wrote yesterday on the forum that it is probably Infinite)?!...
Tomorrow, after work, I'll spend the whole night playing FRONTIERS!!...

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14 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Forces didn't have much, if any, comedy...

Comedy doesn't make for a bad story...

It does when you rely on it as what comes off as a crutch. And when done to much that is what all outside of your typical sonic fan will see the series as and blow it off. Outside one review I have seen today which opened their review rambling about 06 I have not seen so many sites praise the story of a sonic game in nearly a decade and even then I do not think many were clamoring about adventure 1 and 2 all that much story wise besides having something finally vocal and flowing in a 3d setting.   While it may not be "every" sonic fans cup of tea I am happy and proud to see people enjoying Sonics story for once and hope to see future tie ins of IDW characters hopefully one day and a larger connected story going forward.

 

And Forces in itself came off funny cause the way they tried to write infinite as a powerful villain who at the end of the day was just someone with self esteem issues that got handed by a OC and who couldn't put two and two together to figure out why after all this time this random person was able to not be affected by his attacks. Maybe one of the numerous copys of the ruby?

 

Edit*but this is just my take* As someone that has been here since 90 I am just happy to finally see a decent story for once again.

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2 minutes ago, Darkvizardberrytan said:

It does when you rely on it as what comes off as a crutch.

The only way comedy becomes "a crutch" is when your writing can't handle being serious at all...

As in, you downplay every serious beat with a joke, that's not what any game before Forces did...they were just lighthearted stories and humor is natural to that tone.

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50 minutes ago, Darkvizardberrytan said:

I am just thankful we FINALLY got a decent story that is just another comedy roundup hour. I for one am glad they pulled in Ian. Showing Sonic can work in a a more mature story line without just needing to be numbed down just cause some see him as a cartoon and thus needs to be more whimsical in his telling of sunshine and such.

Don't you mean "isn't a comedy roundup hour"?

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37 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

Don't you mean "isn't a comedy roundup hour"?

Yes lol I had just got home from work. That's what staring at a computer screen for 8 hours will do to you

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1 hour ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Frontiers actually did have a fair amount of jokes, and I think most of them landed.

This shows that an overall serious Sonic plot can still have enough levity to not feel overly grim and dour the whole time. I think Flynn has always been really good at keeping a nice balance.

Frontiers is a lot more grounded than the Pontaff games tonally, but I don't think we're ever going back to Shadow/06-style storytelling again, and thank god for that.

I'm curious, what about those games do you see as so vastly different here given Ian Flynn explicitly cribs from the Adventure era, Dark Age included. 

 

Aside from the fact that Shadow isn't here. 

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8 hours ago, Diogenes said:

So I keep turning the story over in my head. Mostly just being baffled at how terrible almost every aspect of it is. But I've kinda got an inkling of a possibility of what it all might mean, and I may be wildly off base, but...

Did we just witness the end of Modern Sonic?

They have said they want this to be a turning point for the series, the start of a new era. I had assumed this was mostly about the new gameplay direction. But certain things in the story feel like they're trying to come together for a sense of finality.

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The game tries to present the captured characters as reaching some level of actualization, after some navel gazing and pep talks. Amy wants to spread love, Tails is growing up and becoming independent, Knuckles...well he'll be back to his island but he's got friends I guess. And it's in no way unusual for the characters to go their separate ways at the end of a Sonic game, but I'm not sure it's ever felt quite so deliberate, with them all having reasons to go off on their own, as opposed to Sonic just running off and everyone else presumably just going back to doing whatever they do when a game isn't happening.

And on the way there there are so. Many. Namedrops. This game may make more references than Generations, the game entirely about reliving the history of the series. If there's the slightest opportunity to name a character, place, group, or event, it's taken, whether it's relevant to the situation or not. Sometimes with jpeg flashbacks to be sure you really remember it. At first I assumed this was just Flynn being Flynn, but. We also have cyberspace, 3 reused level themes and many reused level designs, barely acknowledged by the narrative. Why is the game spending so much time in Sonic's past when it has nothing to do with what's going on? Is it really just the usual nostalgia pandering?

And then there's the moon-sized elephant in the room. Man if you thought the Deadly Six and Infinite were terrible villains, try a pretentious, edgy, evil moon. It wants to kill everything because it's evil. That's it. Cool story. But something that blunt has to have a metaphorical angle, right? It can't just be that stupid, it has to represent something, right? Well, if you've missed it, it's called The End. The end of the chaos aliens and countless others, sure, that's the literal meaning. The end of the game, yeah, a bit of a metaphor. But if you're going to be that pretentious, is that all you shoot for? What if this really is The End? Where do you go after killing elemental evil, a thing that is (or at least considers itself to be) far beyond all the machines, monsters, and gods you've fought before? What if the game was intended to give the main characters a final sendoff and some degree of closure? What if this was one last walk down memory lane before we truly move on from it? Maybe it's more than a coincidence that this game tries to tie itself back to Sonic Adventure, the first Modern Sonic game. We've closed the loop, and next time is something new.

...maybe. Maybe we'll get a reboot and start everything fresh. Or maybe we'll get a time skip and see what everyone turned into after a couple years off on their own. Or maybe this game('s story) will be received so poorly that they'll bury any such plans. Or maybe the knockoff Ikaruga hacking minigame repurposed into a hard-mode-only final boss fight with an evil moon desperately trying to be a Toby Fox game simply broke my fragile grasp on sanity and none of what I've said makes sense.

Guess we'll find out in about 5 years.

They're staffing up on lorekeepers and making more references than ever, so as much as I've warmed up tot he idea of a reboot I don't think one is on the cards. They seem more committed to this continuity than ever.

A time skip is more likely, but I'm not sure what the point would be. They've gone out of their way to scrap character ages already. Would they really want to turn around and draw attention to that with emphasis on the passage of time? What would change about the characters compared to if they just showed up in the next game with the lessons they learned from this one in mind?

I think it's more likely that
 

Spoiler

Ian was told to make a story out of a bunch of Sonic characters standing around in a field doing nothing and landed on self-reflection. The overabundance of references is just him being himself and wanting to satisfy the fanbase's long standing craving of the series having some sense of definitive history.

SAGE was obviously a pull from EVA, but I don't think her clumsy subplot is the only part of the game the series influenced. That entire franchise has an overarching theme of self-actualization. Learning to live with your shortcomings, insecurities and fears so you can move past them and connect with others. Sonic's obviously dumbed most of those aspect down, just like it does with everything else it cribs from, but it's still there and I wouldn't be surprised if Sonic Team saw that series, saw the fan outcry for serious stories, and landed on 'do something like that'.

Kind of cynical I guess but these pieces aren't coming together for me to form a theme. It all seems very shallow and stapled together. The closest I can get is maybe proving that everyone, including Eggman, is capable of growth and change. Maybe I'll have more for you once I finish the game.

 


 

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I said it once and I will say it again. I am glad Sage is a new addition to the cast BUT that said I wonder what role she will take in future games. Or stories at least. It is just something about the way he says "Thats my girl that just felt right"

Just now, Kuzu said:
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Oh people are going to have SO much to say about SAGE, good and bad lmao

All good for the tiny lady. Protection gates need to go around her.

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35 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I'm curious, what about those games do you see as so vastly different here given Ian Flynn explicitly cribs from the Adventure era, Dark Age included. 

Aside from the fact that Shadow isn't here. 

I think Shadow/06 felt a lot more dour and grim than Frontiers did. Like, you've got Shadow gunning down normal human soldiers with realistic guns, or outright killing Eggman in (admittedly noncanon) endings - all of which feels a little much for Sonic to me.

06 isn't quite as cavalier about rampant death, but it also just feels really dry and humorless most of the time. Eggman himself is just played as a kind of generic bad guy without much of his whimsical or funny traits. The other characters don't fare much better and feel too subdued, at least to me. It's less over-the-top dark like ShtH and more of a lifeless and boring kind of serious.

I did like Sonic Man, though.

Mind you, Shadow simply being in games doesn't make me dislike them, even if I have no love for the character himself. I adore SA2, and I think Sonic Battle's story is a lot of fun too. I'm kinda eh on Heroes but it's not because it's "too dark" so much as its story is kind of a sloppy disorganized mess.

(Honestly though, I'm happy enough about what Frontiers did that I'm not even that annoyed by Shadow anymore. He can start showing up all the time again and I won't complain anymore.)

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18 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I think Shadow/06 felt a lot more dour and grim than Frontiers did. Like, you've got Shadow gunning down normal human soldiers with realistic guns, or outright killing Eggman in (admittedly noncanon) endings - all of which feels a little much for Sonic to me.

That kind of was the point. I'm curious on how you feel about the Archie Sonic arc which is basically a sequel to the game also written by Flynn and if your opinion would change if it was written by someone...competent or if you just hate the concept of a "Darker" Sonic on principle. 

18 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

(Honestly though, I'm happy enough about what Frontiers did that I'm not even that annoyed by Shadow anymore. He can start showing up all the time again and I won't complain anymore.)

If he gets more screentime than Eggman, yes you will :V

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4 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

If he gets more screentime than Eggman, yes you will :V

Nah, I'll be good. Promise.

I'm legitimately grateful for what Frontiers did. Like, short of giving Eggman his own game, this is pretty much everything I ever wanted for him in this series and I'm going to remain content about this for a long time - even if they don't focus on him quite as much in some upcoming games.

If anything, Shadow fans deserve to be happy too - so I hope he does get more focus soon. Same for other characters who haven't appeared in a while. Spread the love, man.

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46 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

They really need to shake up the roster next game...

Let Amy, Tails, and Knuckles miss a game for a while.

Haven't people been complaining about that?

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About what I said?

Yes.

It would really be nice for Sonic to interact with not his close friends...and for those "not close friends" to even interact with eachother.

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17 minutes ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

Does Shadow even get mentioned in this game?

He might. Rouge gets mentioned by Sonic in one of his idle dialogues where he says "I wonder if I could get Rouge to just steal the rest of the Emeralds for me?" Came across it last night while filling out the map on Chaos Island.

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14 hours ago, Wraith said:

They're staffing up on lorekeepers and making more references than ever, so as much as I've warmed up tot he idea of a reboot I don't think one is on the cards. They seem more committed to this continuity than ever.

A time skip is more likely, but I'm not sure what the point would be. They've gone out of their way to scrap character ages already. Would they really want to turn around and draw attention to that with emphasis on the passage of time? What would change about the characters compared to if they just showed up in the next game with the lessons they learned from this one in mind?

I think it's more likely that
 

  Hide contents

Ian was told to make a story out of a bunch of Sonic characters standing around in a field doing nothing and landed on self-reflection. The overabundance of references is just him being himself and wanting to satisfy the fanbase's long standing craving of the series having some sense of definitive history.

SAGE was obviously a pull from EVA, but I don't think her clumsy subplot is the only part of the game the series influenced. That entire franchise has an overarching theme of self-actualization. Learning to live with your shortcomings, insecurities and fears so you can move past them and connect with others. Sonic's obviously dumbed most of those aspect down, just like it does with everything else it cribs from, but it's still there and I wouldn't be surprised if Sonic Team saw that series, saw the fan outcry for serious stories, and landed on 'do something like that'.

Kind of cynical I guess but these pieces aren't coming together for me to form a theme. It all seems very shallow and stapled together. The closest I can get is maybe proving that everyone, including Eggman, is capable of growth and change. Maybe I'll have more for you once I finish the game.

 


 

Spoiler

You might be right.

I will say, and this is just something I've noticed from IDW, but Ian's themes around Sonic in general seem to be shifting to acknowledging the status quo. He's made at least several plots that seem to start with some character's frustration about it and their determination to shift it. So this might be all the more on Ian and some kind of subtle desire to shake things up, or something ST have been wanting to move forward one, and he's been advocating for it.

But well... not much else to say from there, because we won't know until the next game if any of this is the case.

All I can definitively say, is that this type of story is not out of character for Flynn. So it may not really reflect any intent from ST aside from them approving it.

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12 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Haven't people been complaining about that?

People have complained about a lot of stuff. It's kind of turns into a lot of nonsensical noise in my head at times. 

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