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Sonic Frontiers biggest non game design flaws, and are they due to incompetence?


Forgeafrontier

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36 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

That's just it though, Sonic fans act like that's exactly what it is.

I can't say I've seen anyone treat the game like it doesn't have a lot of problems. Lots of people love it and that's fine, but pretty much everyone still acknowledges key places it can and should be improved--and that the game could have also reviewed better. But I don't think anyone's deluding themselves into thinking the game reviewed spectacularly. And even then, why care?

36 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

The question never shifts to the point that Sonic isn't selling anywhere near as well as his contemporaries. Even Zelda didn't really hit a similar level of success until Breath of the Wild came out, but has since surpassed Sonic's sales in totality. So the question becomes, how can Pokemon and Mario still sell over 20 Million copies easily, but Sonic struggled to do even 3M until recently? Everyone treats Sonic like it is a AAA franchise in the same category as the likes of Mario or Pokemon, but doesn't have anywhere near the amount of polish or quality is the point I'm making. 

Sonic is AAA in the sense that his face is absolutely goddamn everywhere, not because his games get that kind of treatment. The series may have started as a game series, but it's a big multimedia thing nowadays. The games haven't been all that popular since the 90s, and while it's certainly easy to argue that's because of the games' overall quality, I think that misses the bigger picture. Sonic games are less popular because Sega games and platformers in general are less popular. Nintendo games and multiplayer titles also have a complete and utter chokehold on the kids' gamers market. Kids don't see Sonic as the game character, they see him as the cartoon character or movie star, because that's how they were introduced to him. They don't see Sonic as Sega the same way kids would see Mario or Link as Nintendo or Pikachu as Pokemon. They just see Sonic.

That speaks to the undying appeal of the character and why he's still kicking after a lot of characters, and I think the earlygame success of Frontiers being far stronger than anything the series has seen since the 90s suggests an imminent paradigm shift in the way the general public may view Sonic. It's up to Sega and Sonic Team not to screw up the momentum, and what I've said doesn't excuse the many low quality games they have put out before this point. But the games don't get the AAA treatment because they aren't what give it its definition these days.

(Pokemon hasn't been polished or quality for a very long time, if you ask me. But I digress.)

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Just now, Kuzu said:

And I reiterate, other developers have had to work in similar conditions and were still able to put out quality products. All of these just sound like excuses to not hold Sonic Team accountable. 

Your issue is assuming people are making excuses for Sonic Team when pointing out legitimate reasons for blemishes in an otherwise fine product.

And nothing it seems will convince you from that mindset. I don't know what to tell you.

These all come from bits that we do know for certain marred the bouts. Obviously, not every project is the same, and not every company is overbearing with crunch like SEGA. 

If Frontiers hadn't endured crunch, I might have seen points from you, but as it was subject to that, there's not really that much of a solid case suggesting that it wasn't the case for Sonic Team.

Though with Sega finally apparently the Sonic franchise and its team better resources and funds, we should get to hopefully see how they'll fare.

And Frontiers was already a keen game, so the followup should be better.

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12 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

I can't say I've seen anyone treat the game like it doesn't have a lot of problems. Lots of people love it and that's fine, but pretty much everyone still acknowledges key places it can and should be improved--and that the game could have also reviewed better. But I don't think anyone's deluding themselves into thinking the game reviewed spectacularly. And even then, why care?

Sonic is AAA in the sense that his face is absolutely goddamn everywhere, not because his games get that kind of treatment. The series may have started as a game series, but it's a big multimedia thing nowadays. The games haven't been all that popular since the 90s, and while it's certainly easy to argue that's because of the games' overall quality, I think that misses the bigger picture. Sonic games are less popular because Sega games and platformers in general are less popular. Nintendo games and multiplayer titles also have a complete and utter chokehold on the kids' gamers market. Kids don't see Sonic as the game character, they see him as the cartoon character or movie star, because that's how they were introduced to him. They don't see Sonic as Sega the same way kids would see Mario or Link as Nintendo or Pikachu as Pokemon. They just see Sonic.

That speaks to the undying appeal of the character and why he's still kicking after a lot of characters, and I think the earlygame success of Frontiers being far stronger than anything the series has seen since the 90s suggests an imminent paradigm shift in the way the general public may view Sonic. It's up to Sega and Sonic Team not to screw up the momentum, and what I've said doesn't excuse the many low quality games they have put out before this point. But the games don't get the AAA treatment because they aren't what give it its definition these days.

(Pokemon hasn't been polished or quality for a very long time, if you ask me. But I digress.)

I'm speaking strictly about the video games here. We're talking about the AAA GAMING industry. Because that's what Sonic is at the end of the day, a video game series. 

12 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Your issue is assuming people are making excuses for Sonic Team when pointing out legitimate reasons for blemishes in an otherwise fine product.

And nothing it seems will convince you from that mindset. I don't know what to tell you.

These all come from bits that we do know for certain marred the bouts. Obviously, not every project is the same, and not every company is overbearing with crunch like SEGA. 

If Frontiers hadn't endured crunch, I might have seen points from you, but as it was subject to that, there's not really that much of a solid case suggesting that it wasn't the case for Sonic Team.

Though with Sega finally apparently the Sonic franchise and its team better resources and funds, we should get to hopefully see how they'll fare.

And Frontiers was already a keen game, so the followup should be better.

You still have yet to address the point presented about what makes this situation unique from any other publishers or developers that have put out better products. If all you're gonna do is sidestep and continue to make excuses for Sega and Sonic Team then there's really no point in even talking about this anymore with you. 

14 minutes ago, GX -The Spindash- said:

"Free Pass" is weird way to put it.

I mean, I don't know Sonic Team's work culture. Broadly, I know Japanese development studios had a much harder time in both culture an infrastructure moving to work-from-home. I can't recall precise examples of what was impacted, but it was at least the general sentiment at the time.

Let's also not blow out of proportion what is being argued here. It's not that anybody is saying "Sonic Frontiers isn't on par with its contemporaries but it should get special treatment for that." As with any game, we're simply speculating the potential potholes on the road of this game's development that might explain why it is the way it is.

The point is there's nothing really unique about the development cycle that Sega and Sonic Team have to go through making Sonic games, that they had the longest development cycle of any game to date  and yet still barely hit the deadline, and they're still lagging behind their competition in terms of brand recognition and sales on the video game front. 

Its a very valid question to ask how exactly are they managing their resources given all of that. 

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11 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

You still have yet to address the point presented about what makes this situation unique from any other publishers or developers that have put out better products. If all you're gonna do is sidestep and continue to make excuses for Sega and Sonic Team then there's really no point in even talking about this anymore with you. 

Except. I do no such thing. But any attempt at explaining it, you seem hard-wired to just paint as an excuse, because you're set in your way of thinking that.

Like, honestly, even with the set of explanations given, you just simplify it down to Sonic Team supposedly just being a bad case in that regard.

And it's needlessly belittling to just label reasoning in their favor as making excuses as well as killing conversation at that.

Despite your accusations, people here really aren't trying to make excuses and just pat Sonic Team on the back, as others have pointed out as well.

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2 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I'm speaking strictly about the video games here. We're talking about the AAA GAMING industry. 

Sonic isn't a AAA game series and has not been for a long time. A mix of shifting markets, Sega's floundering in 1st Party, and the growing overall cold reception towards platformers from non-Nintendo publishers all but eroded his explosive popularity from the early-mid 90s. Combined with the recent successes of the movies and Frontiers catching a lot of eyes for its design choices, and it only makes sense that it was the most successful game since the classics. I won't argue that poor quality games up to this point didn't play part in the reason that the games fell off sales-wise, but I will say it was of lesser importance compared to the games simply not aligning with market trends of the time. Rise of Lyric didn't sell like shit just because it was bad, but also because it was a licensed platformer that released solely on the Wii U.

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3 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Its a very valid question to ask how exactly are they managing their resources given all of that. 

Oh, simple. Because it's not a safe assumption that they get everything right on the first try.

The tough part here is that we simply do not have a sense of how Sonic Team... prototypes and is expected to prototype, or what their actual deadlines, side projects, and so forth are like. I think most people here will agree that Sonic Team isn't achieving on par with their peers, we just don't have a great way to analyzing why that is because there are a lot of variables in play, from their internal culture, to SEGA's business culture, to the influence of external forces, etc...

There's some voices in the conversation that want to pitch it as "Well, the core problem is that they're bad at their job." That was the original assertion made in this thread. And while... it certainly is a perspective, "Sh**'s f***ed" isn't exactly a stance that lends itself to nuanced discussion as one might have on a forum.

I legitimately do agree that Sonic Team does not appear to have the same degree of leadership and talent that some of its peers have. But I also know I've played games from them across the quality spectrum, both good and bad. I've also seen companies like Nintendo, Capcom, EA, Ubisoft, and others that have released fantastic games... simply stumble at times. In all development projects, there is always the risk of things simply not turning out as you may want. And as someone who invested 30 of my hours into playing this game, I'm interested in trying to break down what does and doesn't work, and really try to drill down on why that may be, even if it's only in hypotheticals.

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Sonic Frontiers has one of the most transparent dev timelines of all Sonic games by far now. We have specific comments on when the first game's build was Beta tested and playtesting to change the game began, we have comments on how much COVID actually impacted the team, we have comments on what was changed in the game and in what order during refinement, and we have comments on what an entire year's worth of a delay from it's previous projected release date was devoted to.

It's not some mystery development where you can throw COVID or SEGA at to handwave culpability. It is one of the most open-and-shut, well documented cases of the team being given enough room to make the game work, where and when it otherwise wouldn't. It's one of the most emphasized points in their interviews.

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Game dev is a constant in trial-and-error when blazing new trails or trying something new with someone old. Errors or unforeseen causalities means that development will almost never be 100% smooth or have plenty of complications, which will often crop up in final products in more subtle ways. That's not to say that Sega nor Sonic Team are deserving of charity knowing this, especially when a lot of Frontiers' issues is just ST defaulting on problems they had roughly half a decade to fix. But I think it's important to acknowledge that projects from even the best teams may not come together completely properly due to the turbulent nature of games development as a whole. Frontiers doesn't deserve credit for crossing the finish line--ultimately, it is still a markedly flawed product that asks for your money, but I'll acknowledge that you can never really fully know games development as an outsider on its production.

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1 hour ago, GX -The Spindash- said:

Oh, simple. Because it's not a safe assumption that they get everything right on the first try.

Its been twenty years and these games still have the same problems.

I don't there's any point in speculating either on why that is when its more just a matter that they're simply not competent developers. Their best best efforts simply producing passable products that still fall far below the expectations of a legacy franchise like Sonic. 

1 hour ago, ZinogreVolt said:

Sonic isn't a AAA game series and has not been for a long time. A mix of shifting markets, Sega's floundering in 1st Party, and the growing overall cold reception towards platformers from non-Nintendo publishers all but eroded his explosive popularity from the early-mid 90s. Combined with the recent successes of the movies and Frontiers catching a lot of eyes for its design choices, and it only makes sense that it was the most successful game since the classics. I won't argue that poor quality games up to this point didn't play part in the reason that the games fell off sales-wise, but I will say it was of lesser importance compared to the games simply not aligning with market trends of the time. Rise of Lyric didn't sell like shit just because it was bad, but also because it was a licensed platformer that released solely on the Wii U.

I don't completely agree with this because its not like the Platforming genre was completely dead in the water either.  Yes, trends have changed over time, but we've had well received 3D platformers in the last couple of years such as Crash 4 and a A Hat in Time.  

But at the very least, as long as we're partially in agreement that the general decline in quality of the games has played a role here.

1 hour ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Except. I do no such thing. But any attempt at explaining it, you seem hard-wired to just paint as an excuse, because you're set in your way of thinking that.

Like, honestly, even with the set of explanations given, you just simplify it down to Sonic Team supposedly just being a bad case in that regard.

And it's needlessly belittling to just label reasoning in their favor as making excuses as well as killing conversation at that.

Despite your accusations, people here really aren't trying to make excuses and just pat Sonic Team on the back, as others have pointed out as well.

That's all you've been doing whenever this subject comes up and instead of addressing the point being made about the subject, you try to spin it to making it seem like everyone else is the problem for not seeing it the way that you do as opposed to just looking at it for what it is. 

That's why these conversations with you never go anywhere because you're adamant on always giving Sonic Team the benefit of the doubt no matter what happens despite them consistently having documented issues in game development for well over three decades now.

 

That's why I don't really care to continue this because I know you're not going to understand and I'm not gonna waste my time trying to convince you. 

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12 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

That's all you've been doing whenever this subject comes up and instead of addressing the point being made about the subject, you try to spin it to making it seem like everyone else is the problem for not seeing it the way that you do as opposed to just looking at it for what it is. 

That's why these conversations with you never go anywhere because you're adamant on always giving Sonic Team the benefit of the doubt no matter what happens despite them consistently having documented issues in game development for well over three decades now.

That's why I don't really care to continue this because I know you're not going to understand and I'm not gonna waste my time trying to convince you

There again is your problem. You assume those who don't think Sonic Team are incompetent are just making excuses for them.

You're too far in on it, and discussion with you on it is unproductive,  because it's always going to come down to how one's in the wrong for speaking positively on Sonic Team's behalf.

One doesn't have to thi k that Sonic Team are incompetent in regards to how Frontiers turned out. As it was, it is a good game.

It's not perfect, and there's room for improvement, but they did act of feedback and put their money where their mouths were. Noticeable improvement across the board.

You're free to feel that they’re incompetent,  but you don't need to look down on people who don't agree with your line of thinking.

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3 hours ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Your issue is assuming people are making excuses for Sonic Team when pointing out legitimate reasons for blemishes in an otherwise fine product.

And nothing it seems will convince you from that mindset. I don't know what to tell you.

These all come from bits that we do know for certain marred the bouts. Obviously, not every project is the same, and not every company is overbearing with crunch like SEGA. 

If Frontiers hadn't endured crunch, I might have seen points from you, but as it was subject to that, there's not really that much of a solid case suggesting that it wasn't the case for Sonic Team.

Though with Sega finally apparently the Sonic franchise and its team better resources and funds, we should get to hopefully see how they'll fare.

And Frontiers was already a keen game, so the followup should be better.

This game has pop in comparable to ps1 games, while graphically looking like a late ps3/early ps4 game at best yet despite all that it runs at 30 FPS ON LAST GEN CONSOLES. This is utterly inexcusable no matter the circumstances but I really don't think its out of this world to suggest areas of sonic team are incompetent/underqualified.

Just take a look at this and think "is it really excusable for this to be running at 30 fps on last gen consoles?"

 

image.thumb.png.2e3b9be36771784fb746a5a8c0694b1e.png

 

This video points out pretty much every single polish issue that (most at least) should not be here due to the game getting an extra year of development time

 

 

4 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Sonic Team themselves are acting like that with songs like One Way Dream.

lol that song while catchy is a bit funny to listen to at points, doesn't it have a line in it where they basically mock anyone that "doubted" them? I mean cute lol? But sonic team's track record sure as hell doesn't give them the right to mock their critics when they can't even make a game with a fraction of the polish games like botw, elden ring, ratchet and clank rift apart and mario odyssey have. I mean this game runs at 30 fps while looking like an unreal engine 3 asset flip with horrific pop in. The only thing which I think is remotely on par with other triple A games is the voice acting and the music.

10 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Scarlet and Violet came out ten days after Frontiers, yet has sold more than six times as much in a similar time span.

 

I agree with most of your points here but I really am not sure how true this is. Yes S/V sold way more than frontiers due it literally being part of the most succesful franchise in the world but that should not AT ALL be used as a metric to say "frontiers didn't sell well" imo. Frontiers from what I have heard from reports, headlines and people that have experience analyzing sales data is one of the most succesfully sold sonic games in well over a decade. That is one thing I actually do think this game succeeded in.

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On 2/23/2023 at 3:19 PM, Sega DogTagz said:

Well to be fair, while we want to hold Sonic to that lofty standard, Frontiers isnt a AAA game, platformer or otherwise. You can't go into this expecting the same kind of polish as Ragnarok or the same attn to detail as something like Persona. 

Sonic has been a budget title for the last few cycles for crying out loud. 

That being said there are plenty on non game irks that pop up during Frontiers that are worth pointing out. Not all of them are due to incompetence, but they are things that probably should have been cleaned up in the QC phase. Others are clear indicators of a developer stepping into a new genre. Something every developer has to tame when jumping into a project outside of their norm.

An easy on to point out would be the quick travel system. It seems like common sense, but having never designed a menu for one in the past, they didnt incorporate the travel system into the icons themselves but into a sub menu, which is stupid and unnecessary.

Another would be the elder coco. Leveling up their stats one at a time is crazy bad programming decision.

A lot of Frontiers' issues do seem to stem from this being, the first time Sonic Team ever took Sonic to this kind of level in the overfield of "open-zone" gameplay as they put it. Not just a hub that you can run around in, a but a field and map where the main bulk of the game.

One thing that is apparent from the development history is that a lot of the changes that bettered the game came from player testing feedback. Feedback that actually got funneled into the game, making it more fun in the process. Sonic Team don't give the inkling that they're inherently incompetent. Given more time to actually get the game beyond just functional and actually very fun was integral to the process. But, even then, it wasn't perfect.

And while some of the issues like the Final Boss are more or less confirmed to be a result of SEGA implementing crunch on the team, like you mentioned, there are several points wherein they made the odd mistake and some things don't mesh as well.

Now, that being said, given how they have acknowledged where the fruits of their labor have gotten them, it does look likely that, like with Frontiers' development itself, they'll curate the feedback they got and use it to improve on the formula, given the rise in success they saw from how they curated and used the feedback they got mid-development.

Overall, I'd say that a lot of the problems seen in Frontiers can be attributed to growing pains and getting into this new style of gameplay.

Although, stuff like how the Elder Koco functions is just downright stupidity. Won't sugar coat that and how baffling it is.

41 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Are you gonna actually address the topic subject or not? Otherwise I'm just gonna go about my business.

Heated as our debate was becoming, I realize that in escalating it, things may have been taken off topic, and for that, I apologize.

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12 hours ago, Forgeafrontier said:

I agree with most of your points here but I really am not sure how true this is. Yes S/V sold way more than frontiers due it literally being part of the most succesful franchise in the world but that should not AT ALL be used as a metric to say "frontiers didn't sell well" imo. Frontiers from what I have heard from reports, headlines and people that have experience analyzing sales data is one of the most succesfully sold sonic games in well over a decade. That is one thing I actually do think this game succeeded in.

Imo that's down to the marketing team though. They were way more aggressive with getting this game out there and actually standing by it's strong points compared to Forces where it felt like SOJ and SOA were at odds with eachother the whole way.

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18 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Its been twenty years and these games still have the same problems.

I don't there's any point in speculating either on why that is when its more just a matter that they're simply not competent developers. Their best best efforts simply producing passable products that still fall far below the expectations of a legacy franchise like Sonic. 

Wait, if you create "passable" products, then aren't you by definition "competent?" Isn't that the baseline? Like, "competent" isn't the high watermark. They're not "excellent" at creating consistently solid games regardless of constraints, but even for all my issues with Frontiers, I wouldn't put it at, like, trash-tier.

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On 2/25/2023 at 3:35 PM, GX -The Spindash- said:

Wait, if you create "passable" products, then aren't you by definition "competent?" Isn't that the baseline? Like, "competent" isn't the high watermark. They're not "excellent" at creating consistently solid games regardless of constraints, but even for all my issues with Frontiers, I wouldn't put it at, like, trash-tier.

A lot of people tend to default to the idea that Sonic Team is incompetent without really putting thought into it.

They do make mistakes but it's not like they're buffoons of the industry.

He'll, even for as much as people conflate it, it's not like Forces was terrible. The game was just fine. Not amazing, but it wasn't some train wreck. It's  a matter of passionate folk exagerrating things.

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15 hours ago, GX -The Spindash- said:

Wait, if you create "passable" products, then aren't you by definition "competent?" Isn't that the baseline? Like, "competent" isn't the high watermark. They're not "excellent" at creating consistently solid games regardless of constraints, but even for all my issues with Frontiers, I wouldn't put it at, like, trash-tier.

If passable games were the goal of Sonic Team, they would be considered competent at their jobs, yes. Excellence that goes above and beyond the actual goals and requirements are rarely considered necessary if basic competency is all that is being asked for.
 

The problem is twofold in this case. One is that this topic itself is asking whether problems in the game are due to incompetence or not, which in essence, is holding the game to a higher standard than just "it works" and looks to ask why those highlighted problems are the way they are. A cabinet maker can be competent at installing cabinets but incompetent at ensuring build quality, if installing the cabinet was all that was asked.

The second is that, passable games are not the goal of Sonic Team, at least for a majority of the time. They repeatedly reference their past works as something they want to compare themselves to, setting a standard for competence in how well they can emulate, succeed, and hopefully improve on those aspects of design. They reference the competition they have in other platformers as something they hope to emulate and use to cater to other players. (Hell it doesn't even stop at platformers in Frontier's case) But most relevant to Frontiers, is that goals of grandeur were baked into it's DNA from the start. SEGA reportedly notes that the metacritic score was lower than they had hoped for in spite of good sales, Kishimoto insists on wanting to compete among the top of the industry multiple times, referencing how Sonic Team lead the industry during the Genesis era, and even the ending theme sings about the team's overall ambitions matching those.
 

If Sonic Team wanted to make Sonic what Lego was to Travelers Tales, putting out game after game with bare minimum functionality in an assembly-line pipeline, and claim no aspirations of achieving and competing with their competition and legacy, a lot of people would collectively shrug their shoulders and move on, leaving the people who are looking for that basic competency to enjoy their output. Sonic 4 would be considered acceptable on the grounds of being passable; heck, hardcore fans probably wouldn't care either, since the title of Sonic 4 probably wouldn't be the same in that scenario.

But that's not what Sonic Team does, for whatever reason. They live in the shadow of their past work, but they embrace it and try to follow up on it off-and-on-again. Questions of competence in actually meeting those goals of excellence is just something that comes with the territory; "passable" is no longer the measurement being used if it can't actually match the standards that they defined.

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1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

If passable games were the goal of Sonic Team, they would be considered competent at their jobs, yes. Excellence that goes above and beyond the actual goals and requirements are rarely considered necessary if basic competency is all that is being asked for.
 

The problem is twofold in this case. One is that this topic itself is asking whether problems in the game are due to incompetence or not, which in essence, is holding the game to a higher standard than just "it works" and looks to ask why those highlighted problems are the way they are. A cabinet maker can be competent at installing cabinets but incompetent at ensuring build quality, if installing the cabinet was all that was asked.

The second is that, passable games are not the goal of Sonic Team, at least for a majority of the time. They repeatedly reference their past works as something they want to compare themselves to, setting a standard for competence in how well they can emulate, succeed, and hopefully improve on those aspects of design. They reference the competition they have in other platformers as something they hope to emulate and use to cater to other players. (Hell it doesn't even stop at platformers in Frontier's case) But most relevant to Frontiers, is that goals of grandeur were baked into it's DNA from the start. SEGA reportedly notes that the metacritic score was lower than they had hoped for in spite of good sales, Kishimoto insists on wanting to compete among the top of the industry multiple times, referencing how Sonic Team lead the industry during the Genesis era, and even the ending theme sings about the team's overall ambitions matching those.
 

If Sonic Team wanted to make Sonic what Lego was to Travelers Tales, putting out game after game with bare minimum functionality in an assembly-line pipeline, and claim no aspirations of achieving and competing with their competition and legacy, a lot of people would collectively shrug their shoulders and move on, leaving the people who are looking for that basic competency to enjoy their output. Sonic 4 would be considered acceptable on the grounds of being passable; heck, hardcore fans probably wouldn't care either, since the title of Sonic 4 probably wouldn't be the same in that scenario.

But that's not what Sonic Team does, for whatever reason. They live in the shadow of their past work, but they embrace it and try to follow up on it off-and-on-again. Questions of competence in actually meeting those goals of excellence is just something that comes with the territory; "passable" is no longer the measurement being used if it can't actually match the standards that they defined.

With that being said, one thing to keep in mind is that Frontiers did accomplish a lot of good for the franchise.

The game might not have netted them the MetaCritic scores they were hoping for, with the variance of some critics in mind, but it's not like the game failed to revamp interest in Sonic. The measure of a dev company's merit or competence isn't necessarily based on a product meeting their goals. Sometimes, even amazing products have failed to reach the benchmarks hoped for by the company, for various reasons, some even independent of their actual quality.

What has Frontiers accomplished? It rounded out a year that's overall regarded as one of Sonic's best. It's the best selling game of Sonic in years, and it is an increasingly popular game that got the main media's attention. And a lot of that is thanks to the fact that the game really does house a lot of improvements and changes to the Sonic system that people have been vying for.

Heck, a lot of what Frontiers does great is owed to how Sonic Team took good takes from player feedback during development and refined the main chunk of the game off of it, delivering a better experience overall that the general playerbase evidently enjoyed, regarding the mass swell of positivity for the game.

Those improvements, don't come from a field of incompetence.

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2 hours ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

With that being said, one thing to keep in mind is that Frontiers did accomplish a lot of good for the franchise.

The game might not have netted them the MetaCritic scores they were hoping for, with the variance of some critics in mind, but it's not like the game failed to revamp interest in Sonic. The measure of a dev company's merit or competence isn't necessarily based on a product meeting their goals. Sometimes, even amazing products have failed to reach the benchmarks hoped for by the company, for various reasons, some even independent of their actual quality.

What has Frontiers accomplished? It rounded out a year that's overall regarded as one of Sonic's best. It's the best selling game of Sonic in years, and it is an increasingly popular game that got the main media's attention. And a lot of that is thanks to the fact that the game really does house a lot of improvements and changes to the Sonic system that people have been vying for.

Heck, a lot of what Frontiers does great is owed to how Sonic Team took good takes from player feedback during development and refined the main chunk of the game off of it, delivering a better experience overall that the general playerbase evidently enjoyed, regarding the mass swell of positivity for the game.

Those improvements, don't come from a field of incompetence.

This topic is about the things the game did wrong though, and whether those things are due to incompetence.

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11 minutes ago, Wraith said:

This topic is about the things the game did wrong though, and whether those things are due to incompetence.

Well, pertaining to a point I made earlier, some mistakes like how the Elder Koco was handled, are downright baffling, but the bulk of the issues, I chock up to the growing pains of this new style of format, mixed in with some difficulties during the development period.

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Competency when it comes to a game dev team is not really a metric that's worth questioning unless one is part of the staff and knows what went wrong where and with who. It's easy to point fingers based on whose name pops up where in the credits, but that's far from giving the full picture into the sticky world of games development. Things like leadership, resources, and logistics are what's more worth discussing in whether a team can fully get the job done or not, at least when it comes to the portions that don't correlate to more exact game design. 

The reason Frontiers is a hot mess technically has probably got more to do with the fact that it's split across nine entire platforms (Switch/PS4/PS4 Pro/XB1/XB1X/XSS/XSX/PS5/PC), and that's before accounting for settings and modes for different platforms. It seems like Sonic Team did all the porting work internally, and that's just entirely too much work for a team as small as them. Even bigger studios tend to outsource porting work to platforms like Switch, or delay things platform-by-platform if need be. As for why it just looks so rough in general, it's speculation but I think it's because they wanted it on Switch at all costs, and on the same day as all the other platforms. Keeping the baseline and ceiling for potential graphics low was more than likely the easiest way to ensure it would run decently without too much trouble. It should look a whole lot better than it does, though, even on Switch (that said, some aspects like low loading times and instant loading for fast travel is actually pretty impressive to see on Switch). 

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4 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

Competency when it comes to a game dev team is not really a metric that's worth questioning unless one is part of the staff and knows what went wrong where and with who. It's easy to point fingers based on whose name pops up where in the credits, but that's far from giving the full picture into the sticky world of games development. Things like leadership, resources, and logistics are what's more worth discussing in whether a team can fully get the job done or not, at least when it comes to the portions that don't correlate to more exact game design. 

The reason Frontiers is a hot mess technically has probably got more to do with the fact that it's split across nine entire platforms (Switch/PS4/PS4 Pro/XB1/XB1X/XSS/XSX/PS5/PC), and that's before accounting for settings and modes for different platforms. It seems like Sonic Team did all the porting work internally, and that's just entirely too much work for a team as small as them. Even bigger studios tend to outsource porting work to platforms like Switch, or delay things platform-by-platform if need be. As for why it just looks so rough in general, it's speculation but I think it's because they wanted it on Switch at all costs, and on the same day as all the other platforms. Keeping the baseline and ceiling for potential graphics low was more than likely the easiest way to ensure it would run decently without too much trouble. It should look a whole lot better than it does, though, even on Switch (that said, some aspects like low loading times and instant loading for fast travel is actually pretty impressive to see on Switch). 

This is a reasonable enough theory for the technical issues, but not the artstyle imo. If these were all hurdles they knew they were going to have to deal with at the start then photorealism was a poor choice and it's not executed well enough to make up for it.

 

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3 minutes ago, Wraith said:

This is a reasonable enough theory for the technical issues, but not the artstyle imo. If these were all hurdles they knew they were going to have to deal with at the start then photorealism was a poor choice and it's not executed well enough to make up for it.

 

I have no idea why they opted for the photo-realistic look, other than what was probably just trend chasing? Either way, if they knew it was gonna be on Switch, they should have prioritized a good-looking but technically lightweight art style early in development. 

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I guess the broader issue I have with this topic then is that "incompetence" is so broad that I don't know how you even make that judgement call without just leaning on blanket cynicism. Like if you were to say "There is a leadership issue" or "There is a resources issue" or "There is a scoping issue" or "There is a communications issue" or "There is an issue with the vision of the franchise" then I can grasp that and there are places in discussion to go from there.

Otherwise, the entire conversation is "They can't do the thing, therefore everything bad."

4 hours ago, The Deleter said:

The second is that, passable games are not the goal of Sonic Team, at least for a majority of the time.

Passable games are never the goal of any professional developer, or any art or software development in general. I can't see "competence" as a quality as the ability to both aspire to and achieve the excellence because the baseline mindset SHOULD be to achieve excellence, and there will likely be wide variance on what excellence looks like and the ability to achieve it given their resources. More over, if I do put on my cynical hat for just a bit, aspiration in interviews sounds much better than airing dirty laundry, so I don't have a good sense on how seriously to take "We want to be at the top of the industry." It's nice to want things, but it takes planning and effort and a LOT of self-assessment and an environment that both facilitates and encourages all that.

All that said... I still broadly point the finger at SEGA. Sonic Team is not the only studio to struggle producing a polished Sonic game (Big Red Button, Bioware...), and it's still up to SEGA to be able to look at a game, see its progress, and make the business decision that polish is more important than the money they can get right now. Regardless of Sonic Team's competence as a studio, which I really struggle to assess without knowing details on what their process is like, there are oh so many examples of SEGA being willing to release sub-par products, broken products, deeply unpolished products, products that have absolutely insane pre-order and deluxe edition bonuses, and... just freaking nonsense gimmicks that exist only for investors. And if Business Dad can't get their s--- together, that puts extra pressure on everything underneath.

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1 hour ago, GX -The Spindash- said:

I guess the broader issue I have with this topic then is that "incompetence" is so broad that I don't know how you even make that judgement call without just leaning on blanket cynicism. Like if you were to say "There is a leadership issue" or "There is a resources issue" or "There is a scoping issue" or "There is a communications issue" or "There is an issue with the vision of the franchise" then I can grasp that and there are places in discussion to go from there.

Otherwise, the entire conversation is "They can't do the thing, therefore everything bad."

It's hard to point out specific issues without being part of the team, but it's easy to see when something is executed poorly. Incompetence is just a trait that they give off. You can push the discussion further and reason why the game gives off that feeling, and where the weak spots (ir: the incompetencies) on the team might be, but feeling of incompetence is where that discussion starts. 

Points like this make me think that the real problem feels like people being unable to get over how harsh the word "incompetence" comes across. Maybe they're not literally idiots, but I can't earnestly say game gives the impression that they have it all together over there. 

 

1 hour ago, GX -The Spindash- said:

Passable games are never the goal of any professional developer, or any art or software development in general. I can't see "competence" as a quality as the ability to both aspire to and achieve the excellence because the baseline mindset SHOULD be to achieve excellence, and there will likely be wide variance on what excellence looks like and the ability to achieve it given their resources. More over, if I do put on my cynical hat for just a bit, aspiration in interviews sounds much better than airing dirty laundry, so I don't have a good sense on how seriously to take "We want to be at the top of the industry." It's nice to want things, but it takes planning and effort and a LOT of self-assessment and an environment that both facilitates and encourages all that.

All that said... I still broadly point the finger at SEGA. Sonic Team is not the only studio to struggle producing a polished Sonic game (Big Red Button, Bioware...), and it's still up to SEGA to be able to look at a game, see its progress, and make the business decision that polish is more important than the money they can get right now. Regardless of Sonic Team's competence as a studio, which I really struggle to assess without knowing details on what their process is like, there are oh so many examples of SEGA being willing to release sub-par products, broken products, deeply unpolished products, products that have absolutely insane pre-order and deluxe edition bonuses, and... just freaking nonsense gimmicks that exist only for investors. And if Business Dad can't get their s--- together, that puts extra pressure on everything underneath.

It's ironic, because with all the swooning over how Sonic Team has improved Sega is rarely extended the same courtesy. They never would have allowed a Sonic game to spend 5 years in the cooker in previous development cycles. They never would have delayed it past more lucrative release windows for the sake of quality assurance. They never would have done extensive QA testing or rolled out a marketing campaign of this size for the likes of Forces. These are all signs of growth on their part as a publisher. Granted, these are competencies that should be happening with every Sonic game but the mood with Frontiers seems to be to just celebrate the fact that positive change is happening now.

They still have their incompetencies, but then so does Sonic Team. 

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