Sonic Frontiers Story Dicussion (Full Spoilers)

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

I will say this regarding Flynn. If he brings up these important plot points and has them left off as sequel hooks, you can bet he intends to pay off on these. Only way I'd see them not properly followed up is if SEGA road blocks him on something. And given what they let him do with this story, I've definitely got a good feeling about the future.

"It's gonna be great". UNIRONICALLY speaking.

[babsiwuff]

2 hours ago, MGA_Gamer said:

I think part of the reason for my sadness has to come from TV Trope's tearjerker page on Sonic Frontiers. The language used makes it look like its the "End of an Era" as far as these characters are concerned!

Sonic Frontiers / Tear Jerker - TV Tropes

Yeah.  This game is BEAUTIFUL.  But it’s also definitely bittersweet.  Tails’ final lines to Sonic about how Sonic won’t recognize him at first when they meet again, indicating that it will likely be into Tails’ adult years before they see each other again made me happy for Tails, but also sad.

As for Amy, I honestly would like to see her and Sonic as a couple, since both hedgehogs are more mature now.  Sonic isn’t constantly pushing her away, and Amy isn’t constantly fawning over him.  But maybe when they reunite again as adults we’ll see that.

So, now that Sonic Frontiers is establishing that the characters are growing into adults, what’s going to happen?  Do you think we’ll get a game that takes place after that maybe a decade later, where they’re all grown?

[MGA_Gamer]

5 minutes ago, babsiwuff said:

Yeah.  This game is BEAUTIFUL.  But it’s also definitely bittersweet.  Tails’ final lines to Sonic about how Sonic won’t recognize him at first when they meet again, indicating that it will likely be into Tails’ adult years before they see each other again made me happy for Tails, but also sad.

As for Amy, I honestly would like to see her and Sonic as a couple, since both hedgehogs are more mature now.  Sonic isn’t constantly pushing her away, and Amy isn’t constantly fawning over him.  But maybe when they reunite again as adults we’ll see that.

So, now that Sonic Frontiers is establishing that the characters are growing into adults, what’s going to happen?  Do you think we’ll get a game that takes place after that maybe a decade later, where they’re all grown?

But I don’t want Tails to become an adult, or even a teenager. Sure, have him spend some time away from Sonic, let him have his own adventures and character growth for a bit, but keep him the Little Bro I know and love for the last 15 years of my life!  

[Danj86]

26 minutes ago, babsiwuff said:

Yeah.  This game is BEAUTIFUL.  But it’s also definitely bittersweet.  Tails’ final lines to Sonic about how Sonic won’t recognize him at first when they meet again, indicating that it will likely be into Tails’ adult years before they see each other again made me happy for Tails, but also sad.

I assumed he meant emotionally. Tails being more independent and growing as a character, rather than literally growing.

As for me, I wasn't expecting to resonate so closely with Sage. The emotional moments with her and Eggman hit me harder since I only recently lost my Dad to Cancer. I honestly wasn't expecting Eggman to reciprocate the same feelings that she did. The father and daughter relationship was sweet and showed a side of Eggman we never really see in games. But it makes sense in a way. We know how loving Gerald was to his family.

It also took me a while to notice that Sage was right all along. Sonic was going to fail. It was her intervention that led to success. I was a little disappointed that they went with the new character sacrificing themselves trope. Adventure 2 did it. Unleashed did it. (Kind of.) But the game scores a point for bringing her back, I didn't think they'd do that. (Even though the fake self sacrificing trope annoys me more than the regular self sacrifice.)

It was still an enjoyable game with its good bits and it's bad bits.

[Dr. Mechano]

If anyone's interested, here's a translation of the Japanese version of the Egg Memos:

There have been some reports that cutscene dialogue was changed somewhat in the Japanese version, changing or at least downplaying a number of character dynamics, including (but certainly not limited to) some scenes of Eggman and Sage.

But the Egg Memos do still depict Eggman getting attached to Sage, and even have him refer to him and Sage as "parent and child."

Eggman seeing Sage as his daughter is still present in Japanese, though it does seem to be conveyed more subtly, and is mainly confined to the Egg Memos.

[Zenmai_no]

Been a day since finishing the game. I was honestly really intrigued by the story, no lies there, for the first time in god knows how many years we finally have an actual story to care for, which is brilliant. Needless to say, character interactions and the general characterization were on point, no issues there. Though however, I have enjoyed the story, it has some glaring issues which I can't deny, and I think most of them come down to the overall presentation. Most of the time I do not like how the cutscenes look, they have this forces sfm vibes, although they are much better here, possibly due to better animation and the better models we have now. But really, could they not afford to put some CGI in the games already, instead paying Marza only to use the CGI in trailers? Sprinkle some of them in the start, the middle, and the end or something. 

Another thing is the tone, while I will take the tone of this game over whatever the *** forces was, I think I like it more when the game has a little bit of more "charm". Frontiers is really banking on the mysterious-somber aspect, and while I respect that, I will say the stories of Black Knight and Unleashed fit Sonic more because they can stand their own legs, and less about going deep on the characters, instead they play the characters' strenghts to the full and feel more like this "grand-adventures", and overall their stories have more impact. Frontiers has a lot of nods to previous games, which is great, it is the world-building we have much needed, but it makes the game less...unique? I do not how to word this I suppose. There are lots of great ideas and events, and they are *this* close to perfection, but somehow they missed the mark by a small margin which leaves this bad taste in retrospect because there is really great stuff here. I do not know what everyone's opinions on Chip are, but I think his relationship with Sonic was better established than Sage, therefore Chip's sacrifice legit made me cry at the end of Unleashed. 

And yeah, that scene with Sage's lullaby was cringeworthy sadly. And while Frontiers has the ABSOLUTE BEST BOSS FIGHTS EVER IN THE HISTORY OF SONIC, honestly Dark Gaia has more impact simply because it has been built better. I get the first three titans, as they have low story implications and act as island bosses, but the final boss absolutely has zero impact on me, it was basically a reskin of giganto and came out of nowhere. And if we argue that "The End" was the "final boss" that is even worse since it is just a purple moon who makes you play Ikaruga. I mean, I am not lying when I am saying that they were *this close*, if you want to include Ikaruga as a bonus, go ahead and do it, it was fun but was it so hard to make an actual FINAL super sonic boss? Now I believe the moon was to symbolize the end, and the end has an actual form or multiple forms as it mentions its incarnations, and possibly the end can be a recurring villain of sorts, maybe even appear in the next game thus the way the final battle was the way it is. But man, just include a segment of the end starting the gain its true form, make her emerge in an ambiguous, uncomplete eldrich form where you race the time against its full resurrection while Super Sonic fights it just like he has done with the titans, but just a tad harder, or just the make the ring cap 100 so it becomes more challenging than the Titans (as you can just stack 400 rings and do whatever you want). I have no qualms with your average fight-the-god at the end-of-the-game JRPG-ass battles, I think they are cool and work well with Sonic, just do it better next time.

Regarding the actual story, it leaves lots of questions, but I will think of them as a setup for a sequel. Still, as everyone else has already said, it is weird how no one ever mentions (except Eggman) the resemblance of the ancients with Chaos. Also, what is Chaos now? What even were the Koco, are they just accessories that carry the will of the ancients, or were they ancients' hearts or whatever? I am not sure if it has been fully explained in the game or if just missed them, in fact, this goes for other stuff, for example, why were the co were trapped in the first place or what cyberspace even was, what happened to the ancients who have fled to the Angel Island. Some of these questions probably have an answer but I found the answers to these plot points were presented weakly or in ambiguous ways in the plot (the alternative is me missing some segments or being an idiot who did not get what I was shown, but I think not?)

Whew, that was all, do not get me wrong I have enjoyed the story and I felt SOMETHING which is an achievement in itself as far as how sonic games go, really feels like a sequel to Unleashed. I also like the story the Colors, I think it was something we needed, and I am content with LW to some degree, but Forces was where I drew the line. Still think the game could have used some lighter, more sonic-ish tones. I kind of believe this was so the Japanese Market is better captured, they went full Rei with Sage on both English and Japanese versions of the game, and all the nods to Eva and all, and it really shows the difference between Ian's story writing with the usual stories Sega wants to tell so we kind of have this great coat of paint to a less impressive, and kind of expected core with a somewhat weak climax.

TL;DR what I would have improved in the story:

+Just a bit less somber tone, a bit more adventurous tone like unleashed, black knight, or sa2. 
+Improve the cutscenes and sprinkle some CGI, also more cutscenes with action instead of talking
+Better explain the story revelations like what the koco were, what the ancients were, and all that jazz
+Build the bosses/villain better including sage (remove the lullaby please) and not have it end with a fight against a literal moon. The end felt rushed and anticlimactic

The best story we had in a while, but not without actual issues which I hope could be done better by the next game if they continue with Flynn. The criticism honestly does not matter much when I can just enjoy the story overall which is an achievement, I like we are tackling these big and serious stories again, there surely were epic and high moments but from an objective point of view there sure were rooms for improvement.
 

[Zoomzeta]

Man, this whole thing has been really discussing the relationship of these characters and their journeys here and possibly the future. 

I want to discuss some of the revelations we've seen of the game.

I'm going to start with Chaos's relation to the Ancients. I don't think he is necessarily directly related to them. However, if we take what we knew of Chaos back then and what we know now, it could be his appearance was the result of long-term exposure to the emeralds, which coincidentally also happen be spliced with Ancient DNA, possibly explaining his reassemble to them. 

As for the Black Arms, it's implied in their first game appearance they had knowledge of the emeralds prior to coming to Earth, so it's possible that it is tied to the emeralds' alien origin. 

[Kuzu]

2 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

If anyone's interested, here's a translation of the Japanese version of the Egg Memos:

There have been some reports that cutscene dialogue was changed somewhat in the Japanese version, changing or at least downplaying a number of character dynamics, including (but certainly not limited to) some scenes of Eggman and Sage.

But the Egg Memos do still depict Eggman getting attached to Sage, and even have him refer to him and Sage as "parent and child."

Eggman seeing Sage as his daughter is still present in Japanese, though it does seem to be conveyed more subtly, and is mainly confined to the Egg Memos.

I can understand some of the dialogue, and yea. Its weird how this is mostly accurate, but the main cutscenes are completely different. 

 

What the fuck even happened with this game?

[Soniman]

I like the story however I have two questions, what is Chaos’ relation to the Ancients as I’m kinda confused with the wording in the Egg Memo so it’s not clearly obvious to me, and is the Master Emerald just totally unrelated to to the Chaos Emeralds since one was already on Sonic’s planet and the Emerald weren’t?

[Indigo Rush]

Some of this is theory, but I'll try to explain.

My understanding is that Chao and therefore Chaos are simply descendants of the Ancients. Now, I think if both Chaos' origin story and this new lore are both canon... the only explanation for Chaos I have is that when the one Chao was mutated by the Emeralds it mutated it into a similar form of it's ancestors? I guess?

As for the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds, either there's another piece of lore they're holding onto, or it's possible that every life-sustaining planet has some sort of magic rock(s) that generates life (like Little Planet and the Time Stones), and the energy signature of those Emeralds were attracted for some weird reason. The Master Emerald can nullify the Chaos Emeralds, so maybe it's like a magnetic polar opposite thing. 

I don't know. What they're proposing is interesting and I'm all about how they're actually expanding on the core Sonic lore and cosmology, but there's some weird inconsistencies they fail to explain. 

[SenEDDtor Missile]

What I'm surprised by is how no one (that we know of yet) is getting angry about Sonic's lore having more aliens in it, especially given this is tied to the Chaos Emeralds and a fair bit of lore from Sonic Adventure.

[Dr. Mechano]

8 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

What I'm surprised by is how no one (that we know of yet) is getting angry about Sonic's lore having more aliens in it, especially given this is tied to the Chaos Emeralds and a fair bit of lore from Sonic Adventure.

I don't love it, honestly. I feel like it retroactively overcomplicates prior stories, and that the overall plot of Frontiers could've worked just as well without any connection to Chaos. It's like how I thought retroactively tying Shadow to the Black Arms was dumb.

But eh. I'm happy enough with the characterization that I don't care enough to complain that much.

[The Deleter]

I don't believe the chao and the ancients have to be linked. In the egg memos, Eggman describes the ancients DNA corroding into a new species due to exposure to "radiation", which is very similar to what happened to Chaos. Then he goes on to mention that they died within a Generation. He also mentions that the cyberspace information absorption extends throughout Sonic's world, which means they would have kept track of the surviving ancients who did transport the emeralds to the master emerald.

Whatever the ancients were before their mutation might be closely related to chao at the same time, but it doesn't sound like they reverted back at all imo

[Zoomzeta]

1 minute ago, The Deleter said:

I don't believe the chao and the ancients have to be linked. In the egg memos, Eggman describes the ancients DNA corroding into a new species due to exposure to "radiation", which is very similar to what happened to Chaos. Then he goes on to mention that they died within a Generation. He also mentions that the cyberspace information absorption extends throughout Sonic's world, which means they would have kept track of the surviving ancients who did transport the emeralds to the master emerald.

Whatever the ancients were before their mutation might be closely related to chao at the same time, but it doesn't sound like they reverted back at all imo

I kind of thought the Kocos were the Ancients' direct descendants. 

[Indigo Rush]

Sonic having an ancient alien backstory is something I've mused over for years now, what with Sonic Riders ZG saying the Babylonians are descended from aliens that crash landed on Earth kind of set a precedent for that, though it was almost certainly a throw-away plot device. My original theory was the talking animals being alien descendants, but I'll take Chao.

Chao being aliens made sense, I mean what are they? Chao being descendants of aliens works, and them looking like Chaos fits. It made for a really fun shock reveal and I think it's a nice layer even if it doesn't quite click.

Now... what I struggle with are the Koko; is it a common ancestor thing where one species inherited the water-like features of the Ancients and the Koko are the rocky/metal one?

Anyway. A Sonic game that has a story we can theorize about is absolutely doing something right. I am really glad I decided to quit Twitter and actually take this entry more serious regarding spoilers, and I'm also glad I didn't have time to play it all in one sitting. I had to digest it piece by piece and was left wondering what was going to come next, and I honestly cannot remember a time a game has done that for me, let alone a Sonic game of all things.

It made the true final boss feel a lot more climactic, not just for this game in particular, but the entire series, in a full-circle sort of way. I really got into it as the biggest legend and mystery of the Sonic universe was being wrapped up and Sonic's at the helm to finally put an end to ... The End. I got chills despite wanting to throw my Switch out the window with the garbage space shooter mini game. 

Anyway, I think that my particular experience with how I paced myself with the game had a major affect on how I enjoyed the story, and I'll admit that bias. 

[The Deleter]

10 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

I kind of thought the Kocos were the Ancients' direct descendants. 

Nope; if you talk to SAGE enough on Rhea, SAGE will confirm that the Koco were never meant to be alive, as they were just lucky charms for the ancients. Sonic then speculates on whether the ancients changed them to hold their wills to keep their memories alive

There's a lot more lore dumps in these that not many people have seen, since it requires playing the game further than completion requirements

[Indigo Rush]

2 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

Nope; if you talk to SAGE enough on Rhea, SAGE will confirm that the Koco were never meant to be alive, as they were just lucky charms for the ancients. Sonic then speculates on whether the ancients changed them to hold their wills to keep their memories alive

There's a lot more lore dumps in these that not many people have seen, since it requires playing the game further than completion requirements

I didn't know that! Okay that makes sense.

[StaticMania]

With more space stuff...

I wonder if there will ever be a Sonic game that goes for a space faring adventure.

[Danj86]

29 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

There's a lot more lore dumps in these that not many people have seen, since it requires playing the game further than completion requirements

Yeah. If I recall correctly, regrets were mentioned too. So I assumed the Koko were inhabited by the Ancients souls who died or contain a copy of their soul at least. Then they are able to pass on when you help them, like with Amy, Tails and Knuckles.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Koco are basically objects with... let's say "imprint" of the person who owned it. What that exactly means is open to interpretation.

Chaos... fudge sake, no idea.
Worst case scenario Chaos is Ancient, the last of his kind, who's smarter than we thought, but still abandoned all of the super-advanced tech and decide to live as a goddamn pool for chao, thus retconning everything we thought we knew about him.
Best case, he really is a chao who just hanged around some ancients and absorbed their DNA. And maybe Master Emerald mutated him further, which is why he has powers that the Ancients didn't seem to have.
Either way, it's messy retcon and I have no idea what it accomplishes.

[Diogenes]

54 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

What I'm surprised by is how no one (that we know of yet) is getting angry about Sonic's lore having more aliens in it, especially given this is tied to the Chaos Emeralds and a fair bit of lore from Sonic Adventure.

It's me, I'm angry, it's stupid.

Not that it's "more aliens" specifically, because with the Black Arms, the Babylonians, and the Wisps, the ship has sailed, aliens exist, no reason not to think there's more. But they're a pointless and poorly explained addition. So the emeralds came from an alien planet. Okay, so what? There's no "therefore" to that revelation, it's meaningless trivia. No story is changed because of this. It doesn't even change the emeralds into something fundamentally alien, because we also see the Master Emerald was already on Earth. So these aliens are connected to Chaos. Somehow. Somehow across one of the longest games in the series they never bother to make it clear, so all it does is throw old lore into disarray. Is Chaos one of these aliens, despite seeming to have nothing in common besides their physical forms? Did they just ditch Chaos' connection to the chao or do the chao have some direct connection to the ancients? Or is Chaos just a more extreme version of a chao taking on animal parts and a chao just slurped up whatever alien slime was splattered on the shrine or something? You might call that fertile grounds for speculation and theorycrafting, but that stuff should come in at the edges, after you've told a good, complete story, and that's absolutely not what we got.

Y'know what might've been cool? You go to the trouble to set up some kind of connection between the echidnas and the ancients, have Knuckles point out their similar circumstances regarding being wiped out, the prologue seems to imply Chaos is still hanging around...maybe actually do something with that? Have Chaos actually be involved with the story of his people? Go into some detail about how the destruction of the ancients on Earth led to Chaos living at the emerald shrine by the time the echidnas rolled up? Have him confront that in his (in fairness, understandable) anger he became a destructive force not unlike The End and perpetuated suffering and death even on those who didn't deserve it? Have Knuckles forgive him and they could bond over being the last of their respective kinds? Properly redeem Chaos by having him help stop The End and prevent another tragedy of that magnitude? Instead of just leaving it at "Chaos is an alien I guess. Maybe."

I'd still think making Chaos an alien was dumb as shit but at least something about it would matter.

[The Deleter]

 

33 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Koco are basically objects with... let's say "imprint" of the person who owned it. What that exactly means is open to interpretation.

Chaos... fudge sake, no idea.
Worst case scenario Chaos is Ancient, the last of his kind, who's smarter than we thought, but still abandoned all of the super-advanced tech and decide to live as a goddamn pool for chao, thus retconning everything we thought we knew about him.
Best case, he really is a chao who just hanged around some ancients and absorbed their DNA. And maybe Master Emerald mutated him further, which is why he has powers that the Ancients didn't seem to have.
Either way, it's messy retcon and I have no idea what it accomplishes.

Chaos is still a mutant chao; his official bio on Sonic Channel says as much:

 

https://sonic.sega.jp/SonicChannel/character/chaos.html

http://sonic.sega.jp/SonicChannelOld/chara/chaos/index.html

They even list the species as Chao (mutant) on the description table:

Quote

種別:  チャオ（突然変異体）

Species: Chao (mutant)

 

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Well yes, I figured you'd be angry @Diogenes. I meant outside of the SSMB.

[The Deleter]

43 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Okay, so what? There's no "therefore" to that revelation, it's meaningless trivia. No story is changed because of this. It doesn't even change the emeralds into something fundamentally alien, because we also see the Master Emerald was already on Earth.

Wait I thought that's what you preferred lmao

[StaticMania]

So the Chaos Emeralds are from space...

But the Master Emerald was already on Earth...