A Better Late Than Never Criticism of Sonic Frontiers 

If you think SNHU is right for you, check them out using my URL: www.snhu.edu/blazehedgehog

"Food tastes better when you're hungry and sonic fans are starving" is such a good way of putting it. I genuinely wonder how Sonic Team will follow up Frontiers. Morio Kishimoto has been very responsive to feedback and ST have had a lot of new hires, which will be better than having a team of only 60 people. There's no way the next game could possibly be worse right?

Trying to boost over the drawbridge is like the most universal experience I've seen people have with Frontiers. It just seems like something you would do and something you should be able to do but no, invisible wall. A bummer.

My interpretation of Sonic is perhaps the most conventional. Despite being a financial criminal, Yuji Naka basically defined everything you need to know in Green Hill; jumping fast on slopes, fast high paths and slow low paths, a big time bonus because the logical conclusion of a speed focused game is to learn to speedrun it (or even just try get faster casually) and that beautiful ring system. Frontiers fixes some things and breaks some things. I have little problems here and there and then a handful of really big problems but... There's a lot of joy there. The open zone structure taps into the joy of running fast and jumping off things. Cyberspace as a quasi BOTW shrine... Well, I was a staunch disbeliever until the game was in my hands and I saw that they got it. Speedrunning those Cyberspace stages was an absolute joy, and while the theming could have been more diverse, the level design could have been less flat, the physics could have been refined... There's more than just something there. Sonic Frontiers represents to me a game that was fun but unrefined, in a way that begs for iteration. Sonic Team will likely inevitably throw everything the fuck away to make a goddamn 3rd Person multiplayer looter shooter but just one more time, just one more time... Stick with it and drop another game changer.

In my opinion, Sonic's combat COULD work if it was more in-line with his movement and his movement was more fluid. Imagine: Sonic rolls down a huge cliff and off of a ramp, just like in the Sonic CD opening. Nice-feeling physics, momentum, the whole thing. Then, the player tilts the camera downward and sees a cluster of enemies. The player performs Stomp move from high above. Since they started so high up, the stomp's impact not only has a large AOE, but also sends the enemies upwards with a shockwave! Sonic then follows up with a bullet-time series of punches, kicks and homing attacks, tearing the enemies apart in mid-air. Then, after the last enemy is a pile of scrap, the player charges a Drop Dash and rockets off into the distance, perhaps off of a hill and jumping into the air to keep that flow going. Maybe find another enemy to fight.

I actually really liked Frontiers, but I'm glad to see a video that isn't just mindless praise of the game for once...The people in this fanbase that are even willing to tolerate the slightest of criticism of this game feel few and far between

Sonic fans got mad that genshin impact won because they liked sonic, I got mad because I hate genshin impact. We are not the same.

I always viewed sonic games as a strange non-euclidean marble physics game. it just so happens that there's characters and plot to it. Seeing the franchise stray farther and farther from that kinda hurts.

Finally someone who isn't dick-riding frontiers and ignoring how flawed it is. Truth is most people who liked it have either never touched a sonic game (which was clear during play testing of the demo) or are just satisfied enough with running mindlessly in an open area without any objective. This is the first time in sonic history , where the art direction was genuinely awful. There are just 3 themes for the islands and they're all unrelated to the sonic series in anyway. just generic and bland , trying to appeal to newcomers who liked zelda and dont know anything about sonic. Atleast mario odyssey still felt like an orginal mario game. And the voice direction for the characters is incredibly depressing , sonic isn't even a teenager anymore , he's a 30 year old man who's sick of life. The dialogue is cringe hell , and it tries to be deep so hard that it is laughable. The animations , if not borrowed from other games , are awkward at best , especially the cut-scenes. The cut-scenes have fanmade level quality. Its never been this bad. Compare lost world cut-scenes with this , and you wouldn't believe frontiers is the official sonic game on next gen hardware. I could go on and on, but you get the point. I've suspected frontiers ever since IGN released gameplay footage and the game only kept looking worse from there. But most sonic fans just need to homing attack to an automated section with 20 bounce pads and grind rail sections to be satisfied

It doesn't look like the rails and the platforms in the sky really blend in or feel at home with the world that they are in. They just look plastered everywhere like you said. In other Sonic games, rails, platforms and other stage objects fit the theme and design of the stage that you are in. Like yeah, a platform in Green Hill Zone may function the same way as one in say Chemical Plant Zone, but the look and design of the platform is different and made to blend seamlessly within the stage itself. All of the platforms and rails in the open zone of Sonic Frontiers, from what I've seen, have the exact same design no matter where you are on the Starfall Islands.

Small note: Sonic Mania and Team Sonic Racing also got delays but I'm not sure if it's really for extra development time for the latter. Sonic Mania even got multiple delays. Also, technically, actually, Naoto Ohshima's last Sonic game before Sonic Superstars was Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games for Nintendo 3DS specifically, and only because Arzest partially developed the 3DS version and Naoto Ohshima is leading Arzest. ^^'

People are not going nearly as hard on this game as they should.

I think that combat could potentially work in 3D Sonic, but only in a physics-based system. 06 and Unleashed's Day Stages showed signs of this where you could smash enemies into each other, and it made the combat in those levels honestly way more fun than it ever was in Frontiers. I'm imagining riding rockets into enemies, luring enemies to hit each other, riding them down hills to gain speed, that kind of stuff.

By this point Sonic is more of a blue blob. Nobody knows what to do with the character, it’s like WipEout, Tony Hawks and etc. more products of their time. It’s hillarious at the same time when Y2K and early 90’s are trending now SEGA thought to copy ‘Breath of the Wild’s homework rather than lean into the 90’s “extreme” attitude of the property that fan games have leant into.

Congratulations on getting the video out, @BlazeHedgehog! I don't agree with a lot of your thoughts on this game, but your in-depth and intricately produced videos are always appreciated.

"There's probably more meaningful characterization in Frontiers than all Sonic games from the last 15 years combined" Sonic Unleashed: ... i'm not over 15 yet... and my little brother The Black Knight is right there what do you mean "Combined"? And let's not forget about big brother The Secret Rings... What is he talking about "Combined"?

I swear some people see an open world no matter if the series fits it or not, no matter if it’s completely empty and dull and just go “oh open world so its the best game ever”… shame.

The delay is astonishing considering how much the sega higher ups has a hard on for kneepcapping sonic team. Maybe it's a sign of better things to come.

I feel like I am in a tiny camp of people that feels like the term "open zone" is the perfect way to describe this game. Open world games always imply that you are placed in exactly that, one specific world that you are dropped in and it's open for you to investigate at your leisure. In the context of sonic, zones were always the terminology used to denote "levels", if you will. So by having a handful of levels or "zones" in the shape of the different islands, that were large enough to play around and explore, I think in the context of sonic, open zone is the most perfect and accurate description of what we got.

I SO agree with your point on the combat. I hate that Sonic uses his fists and I hated how tanky the enemies were in Heroes so it's baffling that they'd do that again but more in Frontiers. To me, enemies in platform games mainly exist as a way to propel the player forward. You bounce off of paratroopas in Mario to reach higher heights and you homing attack across flying enemies to cross gaps in the Sonic Adventure games. I should NOT have to stop my forward momentum to deal with some stupid enemies. Frontiers really just took every popular thing in games and made a weird Frankenstein game out of it. Breath of the Wild's aesthetic and open world, Shadow of the Colossus's story, NieR Automata's hacking bullethell minigame, and a tacked on RPG skill tree. It's a sign of a clear lack of identity. And I get the sense that most of the Sonic fandom that hypes up Frontiers, don't even really understand Sonic's core identity either. Most of them seem to be prefer the modern era and a lot of the ones I've spoken don't even seem to be interested in platform games. So of course, these people would hype up the Sonic game that wants to be anything other than a platformer. The Sonic fanbase primarily is passionate about the characters of Sonic... not platformer gameplay.

weird to think so many folks will think some story updates and new characters will improve critical opinion, when the most key failures of Frontiers are the character movement and open world/cyberspace layout and design. basic fundamentals. i would LOVE to play as Sonic's friends again. in a more regular level to level Sonic platformer game with awesome controls and level design

You kind of misinterpreted what "open zone" meant. While SEGA may be one of the first to use the term directly and so consistently, it doesn't specifically refer to "an open world with Sonic gimmicks", and can be applied to other games. All "open zone" actually means is incorporating open world game design into smaller maps that still convey a sense of scale. The difference is that an actual open world is meant to be completely seamless (aside from transitioning into dungeons and towns and the like), and would usually be associated with massive RPGs and adventure games - your Elder Scrolls or your Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. The point in those games is that you're almost giving the player the complete freedom to choose their own adventures from start to finish. Open Zone really just means you have a fairly large, open-ended environment, that gives you the freedom to explore and progress towards a singular objective in a variety of ways. In Sonic Frontiers' case, you have the same objective on every island (defeat the Titan), and you have a few prerequisites to meet to accomplish that, but there are a large variety of ways you can progress towards that objective by exploring the island. For example, you need Memory Tokens to progress, and those can be found in a variety of ways, such as through platforming challenges, cyloop chests, defeating enemies, random drops from cyloop, and Big's fishing game. The player can spend as much time collecting memory tokens as they want through all of these available means, mixing them together until they eventually have enough to proceed. The same goes for all of the other collectibles in the game, they are available through different means. And the key thing is that the islands house far more than you would ever need to progress, which lends itself to different players focusing on different aspects of the game or different parts of an island to focus their collection efforts on. It's similar to open world game design, but smaller in scope. You're ultimately being pushed towards a single objective and don't have any crazy side adventures you can embark on like in an open world game, but you do have a great degree of freedom to progress how you want through the singular narrative you are given. And of course, the environments themselves are open and lend themselves well to being able to explore with a character like Sonic, but the smaller scale compared to an actual open world means they can still make sure the map is constantly dotted with things to interact with and make use of Sonic's abilities (that's another thing - open world games often have many different abilities and weapons to the point the designers can't always make them required use, or they may only be used in very specific quest lines associated with them, but Frontiers gives you all necessary abilities from the beginning - the skill tree abilities are just extra flair for combat and make it a bit easier). Open zone game design also does not necessarily have to encompass an ENTIRE game, in fact it's super common for open zones to just exist as part of a larger game that is otherwise linear. Even something like the recent FFXVI is an example of that, it has open zones, but they aren't the entire game. But some games like Super Mario Odyssey and Sonic Frontiers do largely use open zones for the majority of their run-time.

On the note of people who defend the werehog in unleashed, that's why I'm always annoyed when someone comes to the defense of the werehog with a clip showing a fully leveled up werehog absolutely pummeling enemies, because that's not really realistic to an actual playthrough of unleashed in my opinion. I love unleashed, specifically the daytime levels, and the warehouse can be enjoyable, it's just that the fights bring it down so much and experience points just don't come fast enough to be able to max him out. Maybe if you take all of the experience you get in the daytime stages and just funnel it into the warehog, but then you're skimping out on the speed and boost stats.

50:00 I think the developers realized that having to cyloop enemies like that would be a problem so they added the quick cyloop into the game. It breaks the pace of the combat but they planned for it. You don't actually have to slow down and cyloop them you can just homing attack them and press x or triangle or whatever the top button is to instantly take off their shield and continue your combo to kill them. It's an upgrade you get by the second island but this criticism is valid. (Although I got it on the first island due to grinding exp lol)

I personally love sonic frontiers, it feels very replayable to me, the open environments are fun to just run around in, I enjoy the combat system, I think the story it went with is something the series had been needing for a while ever since the 2010 era started, the control customization is good to have, and I really appreciate how receptive Morio Kishimoto has been to feedback and it makes me hopeful for how this formula could evolve in future games but if we want future games in this series to continue getting better, then somewhat harsh critique or “tough love” is needed to address and improve on what problems the game still has

This has become one of my favorite sonic games ever but i realized i have the benefit of being on pc and being able to mod out my problems with the game

Frontiers soundtrack I can't agree on, it's the most generic EDM shit I've ever heard, all the cyberspace music blends together. It's kinda wild how bad this game was to a point even the OST was not cooking.

The whole memory thing with reusing level themes doesn’t even work well and they didn’t even use that excuse well. If it really was about that then I find it very convenient that it only remembers green hill zone, chemical plant and sky sanctuary but nothing else from Sonic’s pass

I ultimately came out pretty positive on Frontiers; to date it's tied for my favorite 3d Sonic game with Adventure 1. The main thing that rubs me the wrong way, which you touched upon, is its lack of commitment to many of its new ideas and doesn't bother polishing up its older ones. It feels like a very insecure game; they don't trust the core gameplay to be engaging enough, so they include options to easily bypass them. It gives me the impression that they're well aware of their reputation and are fearful of going too far with some things, including the combat system. The lack of external rewards for collectables also sucks. I've 100% the game 3 times as of today; the core movement is satisfying enough for me to want to go around collecting all of the memory tokens, but I do wish there was *something* material you could get out of it beyond a little sticker in the island selection menu. With the June 23rd update, which came with the ability to turn off deceleration when jumping from a boost as well as the spindash, I think I can safely say that Sonic Frontiers is the best feeling game I've ever played in terms of movement; at least when the terrain you're running on isn't completely busted. I swear Sonic will either fly into the Sun or stop dead in his tracks is his shoes come into contact with something as minute as a pebble in that game; the former can be fun, but the latter is frustrating and sucks. I still don't understand why some cliffs can be scaled with a drop dash and some are hard barriers that don't allow you to scale at all. I'd personally like to see Frontiers' combat fleshed out, but I don't think I trust Sonic Team to do a good job. If I were to gut anything from the game it would be this. That in mind, I still think it's a fairly great game, and I hope to fucking God they build on the good ideas of this game rather than start from scratch again and give us yet another unfinished game full of ideas that are still gooey on the inside. P.S. I'm glad to see Big in the games again, but as a big fan of fishing minigames I'd genuinely like to see something more in-depth than the glorified gatchapon machine we got in this game. That may be an unpopular opinion so I doubt I'll see anything like that though; there's always Sega Bass Fishing ig.

Also instead of cyberspace levels (in a perfect world, the environment of each one would be different), I would still have the thrones transport you to the boost-formula style levels but have them still take place in the same environments as the islands you access them on. We see Kronos, Ares and Chaos Island surrounded by smaller grass, desert and volcano islands in the distance. They could have easily taken place there. Also, I don't think I would have hated Ouranos as a final Island as much if -the awful Rhea Island (it's just the other part of Kronos, why is it even named differently?) wasn't right before it -there had been more islands with unique environments in them making the gap between Kronos and Ouranos bigger, giving it more of a bookends feeling. There should have been a snow island. Or a jungle island. Perhaps an island that wasn't even an island, but a half-sunken massive ship/city of the ancients. And that final boss. Good god. We have a game that emphasizes Super Sonic fights, and your final boss is... a bullet hell? It could have been a multi-phase, AWESOME Super Sonic fight against the End's many forms drawing from Sonic's memories. I hope whatever DLC 3 is giving us is more akin to that.

I've never seen a video that captured my thoughts about the game as much as this. I struggle to articulate my thoughts in a manner that doesn't sound like I'm just a hater, but you managed to do so very well. I feel like this game is way overhyped and I can only hope that maybe Sega learns from Sonic Superstars but that's only a hope.

You ever play Burnout Paradise? For years I’ve felt like that game would be a great blueprint for an open world Sonic. Drifting through tight valleys, barrelling off cliff sides into tucked away shortcuts. The "Big Surf Island" chunk which focuses on doing massive stunts in smaller vehicles in particular makes me feel this way, the weight and sense of speed was just perfect. I know it’s been said many times but it’s still so bizarre to me how little the terrain itself actually factors into Frontiers’ platforming.

This was better address than the other criticism I watched. You took more further that what I hated like having so many skill points on me OTHER than that, update 3 is going to drive me crazy when release. Is not going to fix everything obviously but the biggest issue of sonic frontiers is going to get fix finally Fantastic video and I hope you play update 3 wether you enjoy or hate it 🎉

Man, it's great the see Blaze uploading again. I hope you're able to post more game development content in the future.

Although I still love this game, it’s clear that sonic team has a lot of cleaning and polishing up when the next game comes out

Been looking forward to this one since the game came out. Thanks, Blaze. :D

The DLC Final Boss and the DLC cyberspace portals tortured me over and over again. Inconsistent difficulty spikes. 💀

Open world could have been the perfect solution to the padding extra gameplay styles of game previous. The same assets can be reused by having Sonic come at them from different angles as new destinations appear.

I think the intention as for why the ruins look like they tell nothing is because they are supposed to be in a way, incomprehensible, they are not just a civilization lost in the war, they are an alien species with a technology so advanced that it's practically magic, their lifestyle is nothing like ours or anything that resemble Sonic's world, it almost sounds like Lovecraft with the Ancients being like The Great Old Ones. they are even stated that they pre-exist every ancient civilization we have seen and outclass the Black Arms in both technological advancement and predating them by years. It sounds like a silly excuse, but that's kind of how Lovecraft is also written, a lot of ambiguity about something so great that it means nothing, but it can be fascinating, is both incomprehensible and lost to time.

It's definitely an upgrade from Forces, but by all means it's not perfect. Story and physics and gameplay, not a massive step forward, but a step none the less. Edit: About the houses and structures, Sage did point out that the Ancients had a hard time adapting to the world so the structures were pretty much like that.

I have yet to play Frontiers myself. However, the impression I get from most people played it is that this framework can be promising for future games... but the game itself is just ok.

22:59 Gonna be "that guy" but Open Zone actually refers to the fact that instead of one contained and connected open world, that there are multiple open zones, zones being used in a similar context to the classics.

i personally enjoyed frontiers but i can't deny that most of the points made here are valid. it's just a shame that most of frontiers' flaws can be traced back to sega repeating the same mistake they always do and not giving sonic team enough time or money to implement their full vision for the game.

50:54 Maybe this is news to you, but there IS melee combat in F-Zero. Tackling out opponents at high speed is part of the fun.

Not too bad of a video. While I don't agree with every criticism, I do like people who are honest about the game instead of forcing positivity because of Sonic's waning reputation for the past decade. Not to say we should mindlessly hate on this game, but blindly praising it can be just as bad. Last time that was with Colors where people thought it was a return to form for the franchise, and now over 10 years later, fans are arguing that it's one of the worst games in the series or at least the worst mainline 3D game. On the delayed Sonic games part, they actually delayed Team Sonic Racing from a late 2018 release to spring 2019, possibly because it would have competed with Smash Ultimate (didn't matter since they ended up competing with Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, and we saw how well that went).

I agree with everything in this video except for the combat part. I think giving Sonic melee attacks and having some kind of combat system makes sense. Because otherwise, how would Sonic deal with enemies and bosses in 3D? Previously, it was by hitting a weak point, and then surviving an attack pattern long enough for the weak point to open again. In the Genesis games, Sonic could wail on the boss for multiple hits at any given opportunity, and ideally that should work in 3D, but how? The old method of simply jumping on them doesn't quite translate to a 3D space, especially with the speeds Sonic is going at. If you use the homing attack and simply spam that over and over, it would look a little goofy and could have disastrous results, as it does in Heroes. It would make the most amount of sense to give Sonic some type of melee attack that he can spam at the right time. The fans calling for a combat system grew up seeing Sonic in cartoons, where he'd easily sidestep and dance around his foes as they try to hit him, and do all sorts of crazy maneuvers in fight scenes that you normally don't see in gameplay unless you're playing something like Kingdom Hearts. So if all fans are able to do as him in the games is jump, that's kinda disappointing. Even in the Sonic OVA, lauded by tons of fans as one of the best representations of the series, you can clearly see him doing kicks, against both Metal Sonic and Metal Robotnik. Even in SA2, they experimented with Sonic having special combat abilities, which he uses when you fight him as Shadow. It even makes thematic sense in contrast with Knuckles. Whereas Knuckles does slower but far heavier punches, Sonic would do a series of extremely fast but comparatively lighter kicks. So this idea isn't something completely out of left field and I don't think it's as cynical as copying what other games do. Bottom line: from both a gameplay and a thematic or character perspective, Sonic NEEDS some kind of combat. It doesn't need a skill tree, it doesn't need enemies to have health bars, and it doesn't need EXP or stat progression or any of that crap, but it does need something to justify boss battles that aren't the same "run constantly and hit a weak point every 30 seconds" boss we've seen for the last 20 years.

Shadow the Hedgehog wasn't the first time they listened to fans wanting Sonic to have a gun, it was Sonic Adventure with E-102 Gamma which was then adapted into the mech gameplay of Sonic Adventure 2. Say what you want about both of those play styles but I just find it to skim over that history and immediately bring up Shadow the Hedgehog.

That was a very well thought out and in-depth review BlazeHedgehog, having finally beaten Sonic Frontiers fourteen-to-fifteen days ago, I have......... VERY mixed opinions on. Thats not saying that this game is bad, for what it is, it's a somewhat huge improvement over Sonic Forces, I found the story to be well thought out, it may not be Sonic Adventure and/or Sonic Unleashed levels of great, but for what its worth, its really enjoyable, I like how the characters get MASSIVE character development, with my favorite being Tails' character development, Sage as a character is very interesting and I will admen that I shade a sad sight at the ending scene and joy at the Post Credit scene. The gameplay was also really great, I am a huge fan of Hack-In-Slash Beat Em Up Games and Sonic Frontiers was what I wanted, I mean yeah, its NO Genji: Dawn of the Samuria, The Legend of Spyro: A New Begging, Spider Man: Shattered Dimensions, Darksiders 2 and Bayonetta 2, but it's still a great time. I'm also a fan of how the Guarding Bosses are handled, given that the four main Islands has multiple Guarding Bosses and how you can play any of them in any order you want, it gives them HUGE replay value that's on-par with Mega Man/Mega Man X, and given how much I enjoy those games, that brings a smile on my face. And finale I'm also enjoy some of the bosses, special mention goes to Ninja who is an excellent tutorial boss on how the mechanics work, Asura for reminding me of the Egg Genises from Sonic 06, and the first Titan boss, Giganto, who is......amazing. But despite that however.... many calling it the best Sonic game ever made is WAY too exarate. For one thing, the Overworld Deign could be SO better, they could have made it so that you can go from Point A to Point B more manage able and instead made them way to confusing, mainly the third Island, I had to look up a guide so many times that it made this game tiring. I'm also not a fan of the "Prologue" battle agents the first three Titans, the first one was fun, but the last two is WAY too cumbersome with many bulls#it placements of serten objects (screw the Knight with its fracking Buzzsaw). Another thing that I'm REALLY not a fan of its the Character Tokens, during the second and fourth Island I had to grind SO much that it's not even funny, it may not be Sonic Unleashed's Medal levels of tedious grinding, but in a game that's all about going fast, they should have just left it out entirely. The Mini Games that are mandatory to beat the game are also something I REALLY dislike, there not terrible, but they are SO tedious that it made me want to rage, the Casino Night Pin Ball game from Chaos Island and the last hacking game in the fifth/final overworld before gaining the final Chaos Emerald can seriously go fu#k themselfs. And also I'm not the fan of how the second and third Titan bosses, YOU (as Super Sonic) don't get the satisfaction of destroying the Titan, instead you use the Wyvern's own missiles agents it and in the case with the Knight, you use its own sword agents it, the latter of which uber angered me as after losing so many times in that bullshit Buzzsaw Segment in the prologue, I was REALLY looking forward to seeing Super Sonic demolish Knight, so you can imagine my disappointment when I found out that Super Sonic used Knight's Sword/Whip to deal the final blow..... And finale, of course, is the final boss.... which after having to switch the difficulty just to beat the "True" Final Boss just to beat Sonic Frontiers FOR REAL after just beating it MINUTES AGO and facing The End... I have to ask somthing..... we went from: 1) A Ginormous Water Serpent-Like Dragon Monster (Sonic Adventure) 2) A Gigantic Lizard Attach To A Large Space Shuttle Thats Heading To Earth (Sonic Adventure 2) 3) A Large Robotic Dragon-Like Monster (Sonic Heroes) 4) A Devil (Shadow The Hegehog) 5) Fracking Gods (Sonic 06/Sonic Unleashed) 6) A Robotic Wisp Thats Controlled By Eggman (Sonic Colors) 7) A Robotic Time God (Sonic Generations) 8) A Humanoid Egg-Man Mech (Sonic Lost World) 9) A Humanoid Mech that later on turns into a Robotic Wisp Look-A-Like (Sonic Forces) And in this game, we went from a Giant Humanoid Titan, a Large Dragon, a Four-Legged Knight Robot, a Stronger Version of the Giant Humanoid Titan, AND THIS IS SERIOUSLY WHAT THE GUYS AT SEGA CALL THE FINAL BOSS??? An "I'm smarter than you" jackass A.I. Moon that spams Energy Balls and Energy Lasers/Beams????? Did Sega just run out of time when they created The End and just made this the "battle" to conversated???? So overall, Sonic Frontiers is a HUGE mix-bag for me, please let me explain that this game is not terrible by ANY means and I would like to stress that I DID have a good time with Sonic Frontiers, am so glade that it's here and I'm really excited to see what Sega plans to do next, it's just that I might go back to the previous Sonic games (e.g. Sonic Adventure 1, 2, Sonic Unleashed for the Wii and Sonic Generations) due to all of the problems piling up on each other on this outing.

Finally someone understood. I keep hearing from Sonic fans that Frontiers & Superstar were going back into the Renaissance Era for Sonic and I'm like " No. Not really. ". Sure there are better than the ones we had since Lost World. But that ain't saying much. They have so many problems that needs to be addressed and improved on. Sega hasn't learned there lessons yet and they still keep making unpolished & broken games. Plus there's Mania. That one was more of the second Renaissance than Frontiers & Superstar and it was made by the fans of Sonic. If Sega would've kept those guys, than I'm sure we would've been more into the second era of the Renaissance for Sonic. Instead, they just kept what they got and makes an not so well quality games that they fell to capture. Sonic fans needs to stop acting like babies and just admit they beloved franchise isn't back into it's roots yet.

For as much as I enjoyed this game, there’s so much that could be done to improve the formula. I personally think that it’s biggest issue is that it’s still partially a boost game. They should’ve committed and made a momentum based experience like the adventure games as that freedom of experimenting with rolling off slopes would work better in an open zone as opposed to boosting. Boosting is soo limited on what you can do movement wise which is why some of the puzzles feel tacked on and never use your speed on them. The latter puzzles are mindless platforming sections because that’s all boosting can do. This was a case of the developers wanting to have their cake and eat it: Experimenting on a new direction, but unwilling to let go of the tired tropes Sonic has played with since Unlashed. If they’re going to keep making more open zone games in the future, they need to rethink the way Sonic fundamentally plays and reacts to his environments.

5:12, Sonic 4 Episode 1 and Generations 3DS are two games that got delayed before Boom Fire & Ice.

“This is it, huh?” Video is over by that point hahaa!

I don't typically leave comments much, especially not on RU-vid, but I wanted to say how... cathartic this video is? That might sound dramatic to some, but I've actively found this game off-putting from reveal to release. Nothing of what I saw from then to now has shifted my feelings towards it, at least not in a positive manner, and it made the reception from many fans all the more confusing to me. Not confusing in the sense that they aren't allowed to like the game, of course they are, but it's like how you described it early on: I don't see it. Unsurprisingly, I haven't bothered buying it and playing for myself because spending money on a game I'm confident isn't for me sounds like a huge waste. But to hear from someone who HAS played through the entire game, expressing the same issues and overall vibe of the game just feeling... wrong? It's refreshing to hear when you feel like one of the odd ones out. Even moreso when there are toxic folks out there attacking people for criticizing or disliking the game, trying to shut them down by telling them to "shut up," how "Sonic fans are never happy," or pull immature nonsense like what happened with The Game Awards. Despite some seemingly taking issue with it, I think starting the video off talking about that feels justified considering the kind of behavior that's been going on. This is a great video all in all, and no one should ever feel bad for describing their honest thoughts on a video game.

My favourite part of Sonic Forces was that the mysterious voice sounded a lot like Hydaelyn from FF14 in the Japanese dub and the first thing I said was "Oh no, Hydaelyn's gonna be bad in this game" lmfao I'm glad the game delivered.

What's funny is that... People blamed Sega for reusing Green Hill Zone and Morio Kishimoto (Director) admitted to adding it because he thought that's what people wanted all this time since Lost World. My interpretation of Modern Sonic games is for the games to: Play like the adventure games with little more of an emphasis on Momentum-based platforming, but much improved. Having vibrant and stylized worlds like Heroes, Rush, Rush Adventure Advance 1, 2, and 3 with a sense of realism like SA1, SA2, Unleashed, and Generations. Even cool and catchy-sounding music like Adventure to Colors. Also, redesign the character more similar to 2000s Yuji Uekawa designs, but in 3D. Which OreoArts does a great job of demonstrating what exactly I want in their character's designs. I have more and can go into more detail, but that is just some of it.

It's pretty sad to see you commenting on combat and the like, because even though you say that no one really knows what Sonic is because the series has changed so much over the years, you have a very rigid definition of what you think Sonic should be You compared Sonic with Flash, but Sonic on CD, OVA and Adventures was portrayed more in line with Dragon Ball, and that's how many people saw the series in the 2000s, Dragon ball Z with Furries, and it could work...Frontiers just don't do a good job, but some fans see the potential there... I personally don't know how they could make it work, but if Frontiers was a 2D game, it could work like Megaman Zero, a game that had a lot of melee combat but that most enemies can be killed with one hit or ignored, making it great for speedruns

its interesting - i agree with pretty much all of this video but nearly a year later the high points (bosses, story bits, music) stick out to me more than any of the negatives. i dont think i'll be replaying frontiers for a while after update 3 releases though

What really took me out of the Sonic vibe is all the floating crap everywhere. The levels on Sonic speed simulator (on Roblox 💀) are actually pretty fun just suuuuuper small

3:00 "to hard too learn a engine like unity or unreal" well atleast u dont have too worry about one of them LOL

This video is very well formatted and well edited, and the script is pretty well condensed but, as someone from a completely different stance on the game, i couldn't help but heavily disagree with a key aspect that plagues your critique. During the open world segment, you mentioned how frustrating the inconsistency of the scripting was to you due to going against your muscle memory; but thats the thing, *your* muscle memory. *my* muscle memory had me always use the joystick as if i still had control over Sonic, so in sections like in Rhea Island, it was just natural for me and it made complete sense. Another example is you critiquing the usage of mini games or drawing comparisons to the way BOTW presents its ruins, and all of it all boils down to *your* past experiences with the series/straight up OTHER games to peg down Frontiers which i honestly didn't get. Another example: You say the mini games "dont belong in a Sonic the Hedgehog game"...why not? Hell, BOTW, the game you keep comparing Frontiers to (for good reasons tbf, i dont mind you comparing), has a detour where you have to go on a 20-60 minute side adventure just to get into a female only town. None of these aspects were like this in a Zelda game before, but its there to add variety and not make the game the same old same old. Like, earlier on you complain about how every Island feel the same, then also complain that they tried new concepts within each Island via the mini games and I just dont get it? Another aspect I do not get it was your rant early in the video about Sega "not doing anything to preserve the original team" and that Sonic's identity suffered because of that, citing Frontiers as an example of that, but the ways you described Frontiers to be "out of place" (Puzzles, Story, gimmicks etc) all ALSO apply to games like Sonic Adventure, games that still had a good portion of the original team. Hell, Sonic Adventure makes all these gimmicks mandatory to progress through the game. You can skip fishing in Frontiers, you cant in SA1. In fact, in this very video, you said that you being able to skip content in Frontiers is actually a flaw because it showed a lack of confidence from sega's part, but then praised Skyrim for doing the same thing? You cannot tell me Skyrim has a consistent level of quality through and through with a straight face, so why is it a benefit for Skyrim that you can skip through the parts you arent a fan of but a flaw for Frontiers? Anyway, once again, great video, but these inconsistencies in criticism where you praise other games from the same genre for doing the exact same things Frontiers does kinda drags down the video a bit.

Any step forward is a good one in my eyes for this series, and as personally satisfied as i was by this game i get it when people say they can't make it through the game or just don't like it very much, because i agree that they need to go a little farther than this if they wanna make a 3d game that's truly special. Open design for Sonic is a great and fun idea but i will admit that at this point, it really is no more than an idea. I can only hope they keep pushing for ambition from here on out and take the Sonic gameplay further. No floating Sonic levels just hanging around the landscape, find a way to put collectibles in hard to reach places that you have to use your speed to get to.

Sonic Frontiers is disgusting, in my opinion.

In my humble opinion: I'm tired of Sega/fans pushing for combat in Sonic platforming games. If they want a Sonic character-action game, they can just say that. In platforming games, enemies, outside of mini/bosses, shouldn't take more than 1 hit, 2 AT MOST for sturdier enemies. No need to lost the focus on momentum for the sake of a conflicting gameplay style. Respectfully.

When I went back to this game I really realized how overhyped it was by the fanbase, this video really goes through my problems with it. Horrendous pop in, a dull art style, a story strangely similar to botw, lack of cyberspace zones and original level designs, bad base movement(i know you can tweak it but its base mechanics feel sloppy) jank combat, and more. It really us a bigger mess of a game and the bosses were the only thing that got me to finish it. If the bosses and music are the only decent things about the game than its really not that good of a game

This really puts into words most of the criticisms I have with the game. You showed a lot more restraint that I ever could about it. The part about "nobody knows what Sonic is anymore" resonated with me in particular. In fact, I would go so far to say that every game after Sonic 1 has failed to expand upon the aspects of what makes the Sonic formula work. Sonic 2 introduced dash panels, CD was a much slower exploration-based game, the Adventure games introduced automation, _including the loops,_ which in the original games were meant to demonstrate the _robust, innovative physics engine,_ Heroes introduced enemies that take multiple hits, the very existence of the Wisps, etc. It is only now, with Frontiers re-introducing the spin attack and its modified form, the spin dash, that Sonic team has realized that Sonic is a character that uses its environment to its own advantage, though I am not convinced that this was the intention, as most of the high-level spin dash techniques feel more like exploits of the flawed physics model than intended usage. And I've said this before elsewhere and I'll say this again: from my perspective, everything in Sonic Frontiers is so copy-and-paste from other media that it does not even feel like a Sonic game anymore -- or even have an identity at all. I hate to stereotypical, but the environment design really does feel like a bunch of random Sonic Forces, Phantasy Star Online, and Sakura Wars assets were sprinkled about an Unreal Engine demonstration map. The environment only incidentally feels like it is for the player to use, with the main focus being placed on the automated segments and artificial setpieces randomly placed around the map. It really feels like Sonic Team was desperately chasing whatever was popular in single-player games from 2018 to 2022 to find the widest audience possyble. Financially, it seems to have worked, with Frontiers being one of the best-selling Sonic games ever, but it really compromises the creative integrity of the product. And then these mistakes are compounded by Ian Flynn making these stupid remarks about the ridiculous story he has been handed by Kishimoto (ex. 43:52), as if Flynn is trying to communicate with the audience "the story is just as contrived as you think it is" without losing his job (people complain that the 2010s games were obnoxiously self-aware, but I think Frontiers is just as bad, if not worse than any of them). I've just never interacted with a piece of media so _aggressively_ and _intentionally_ boring before, yet so full of itself at the same time. Also, "Sonic the Hedgehog is a living buzzsaw that is faster than the speed of sound" -- excellent way to articulate how combat in Sonic games should be. I will keep that phrase in my back pocket.

Not sure if I agree with basis of your philosophy, that the main point to bring up in this analysis is a lack of understanding of the new devs, or the missing original influences. Like that's not factually incorrect but... I really don't have an issue with that (if we're only talking about game design philosophy and series continuation cause everyone is screwed over in corporate World. Also I'm not saying disregarding artist intentions is a good thing, this inconsistency is a side effect and the reality we live in, and we can very much work with it for better things) I can maybe explain myself better, but I'll just say I much prefer it when the series is so wildly inconsistent with it's identity, it's the Spiderman situation. Folks have been trying to recreate every interpretation of this franchise themselves, giving more control to general public to explore their preferences on their own. It removes "the auteur" and a piece of work is no longer bound to the whims of its creator. Even Sega as a corporate power has lost power over this franchise to an extent. I feel like the strong fan game Dev scene owes part of it to this. One can argue that leads to a poorer work or it explains the chaotic landscape of the fan base, but I'd argue bad corporate environment and practices are much bigger influence in this franchise's output quality than its inconsistency. And if I comment on the story, I think a lot of frontiers' "non-mystery" and silent dead world is a lot like stalker (1979) Dont know if that was intentional, frontiers is a Mish mash of different inspirations and references but I like that.

30:58 Also personally I don't think Sonic Frontiers' customization stuff is good game design. Yet somehow, everyone else praises the game for this. You can't really design anything out of it, which is why Open Zone takes the broad but shallow form that it does, and why Cyberspace takes the linear but restrictive form that it does. This is part of the problem. It's a critical dead end. A lot of the things one may attempt to criticize about the game's controls can just be waved away with "there's an option for that". I've literally seen this happen before. There's nothing you can do to innovate off of it besides just doing it again or simply including more options in the next title. Normal games do not do this. Especially not children's platformers like Sonic. They may have plenty of sliders, sure, but not literally for things as important or broad as "movement speed" or "turning speed" lol. Why not just simply design a good control scheme instead? What is the difference between having "accessibility" and actually having a defined, decisive attitude on what you want your game to be and how you want your game to play? This is why I can't get behind the idea of Sonic Frontiers being the "future" of Sonic games. Because, what decisions are actually being made here? I think this in itself is simply another product of Sonic Frontiers' awkward, confused, undecided vibe. My only hope with this is that Sonic Team are actually somehow collecting the data for what settings people choose in Sonic Frontiers and somehow using that to invent literally anything ideal on their part. But I mean, why should I even expend the energy in hoping that they would take the time to do something like that? Or even have the means to do so in the first place?

I'm all for Sonic trying new things and not sticking to a single identity. It was conceived to combat the safeness and homogeny of Mario, but even Mario is incredibly experimental these days. His most popular games are the kart racers. His most popular platformers are the one where he goes to space to save the entire universe and the one with a photorealistic dragon that shows up out of nowhere. There's no reason Sonic shouldn't be allowed to experiment with new things. But this isn't a new thing. It can't be overstated how much Frontiers apes from Breath of the Wild. The boost meter is just the stamina meter recolored blue. The game takes place in a desolate world filled with the ruins of an ancient civilization and the tone is appropriately somber, just like BotW. The Kocos are obviously inspired by the same mythological creature that the Koroks are based on, and their names don't even try to be different. They even serve a similar purpose. There are four giant robots that were built to combat an ancient evil entity and you have to fight them. The world is filled with bite-sized puzzles and challenges. Why is that laser puzzle there? Because it's something Zelda might do. But don't worry, it's not like the entire game is stuff ripped from BotW. They also stole purple coins from Mario Odyssey. I get that they have a different function, but couldn't they have at least _tried_ to make them look different? It can't be a coincidence that they're purple coins. The story on the other hand serves the sole purpose of "fixing" things people didn't like about recent Sonic stories, which is _never_ a good idea. You should never write a story about how previous stories were bad. You're not writing a story at that point, you're writing a RU-vid rant. See GodzillaMendoza's recent video on The Amazing Spider-Man comics. The best way to deal with previous stories being bad or controversial is by either ignoring the bad or controversial parts (or the stories as a whole) and writing something better or by releasing an official statement striking it from the canon. I don't want to see Tails cry about how bad his writing has been recently and then repeat his arc from a 1998 game. I just want to see his characterization return to how it should have always been. You don't need to explain it or give him an arc to bring him back to where he should already be. I know people haven't been happy about Sonic games not referencing the events of other Sonic games in recent... decades... but you didn't need to throw in 50,000 of those references regardless of if they make sense or not. It feels more like nostalgia pandering than continuity building. Hell, the fact that Sonic games haven't referenced each other's events in a long time was the perfect excuse to ignore widely hated stories like those of Lost World and Forces without explicitly rendering them non-canon. That would have been a win for both people who hate those stories and people who like them. But no, they had to be explicitly confirmed as canon for some reason and now all the people who hate them have to deal with all the out of character and continuity-breaking moments of those games being canon. I know Amy being a Sonic fangirl is clown on, but they didn't need to completely erase that part of her character. Now she doesn't even resemble Amy anymore. Her new big defining trait is tarot cards, which feels like more nostalgia pandering considering the fact that it was referenced once in an instruction manual and then disappeared from her characterization for decades. You could argue the same goes for Knuckles and grapes. Turning a one-time offhand comment into a huge part of the character isn't character building. Trying to fix things people didn't like isn't writing.

for me, sonic is all about speed being a reward for being good at the game and when you think about it that is in every game, with momentum or not - the classic games made that a thing with momentum based plataforming, fast reactions, and multiple paths - It was all translated to 3d with the adventure games - the boost games had you needing various different things to fill the boost meter SONIC FRONTIERS is a strange case because though the alternate paths and reactions are still there, the game had no momentum (though now with the new updates it does have a lttle) the boost things were more of the meter upgrades, speed upgrades, and others..

Have you unlocked the spin dash? Completely changed the game for me

I hope you realize it’s disingenuous to make the comment said at the game awards all about sonic fans cheating. Genshin impact fans were cheating as well bruh, they were obviously talking about all the bot votes in general, not specifically sonic😭

I haven’t watched the full video yet but I’m pretty sure it was Genshin fans using bots to cheat which is what was being referred to in the clip you showed, regardless I know a lot of Genshin fans voted purely out of belief they’d get some rewards for winning it which is just disingenuous in regards to what game genuinely deserves to be awarded

I think it depends on what youre looking for in a Sonic game. If one is expecting an Adventure type game thars not what theyll get in Frontiers. If youre looking for a unique experience then you wouldnt have too much of a problem. With the exception of Tank, and maybe Ghost, the minibosses arent a problem. The game lets you know that if an enemy in an open world is chasing after you, so now you wouldnt be blindsided by them hitting you in case you werent moving fast enough. The pinball minigame wasnt too difficult for me, probably because I already enjoy pinball games. I agree that if there were small koco towns and other settlements the levels wouldve looked more interesting. The controls could benefit from more fluidity.

glad to see I’m not the only person on the planet who just didn’t really enjoy this game. I felt like I was the problem when I booted up the game for the first time, the game that everyone was praising and saying “saved the franchise” and just. hated it.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Frontiers' worlds are ugly, looking like they're filled with garbage. The stonework is ugly too.

Respectfully, in regards to the critique that the Cyloop slows down and breaks the flow of combat, I feel like that only applies to anyone who hasn’t put the points into the skill tree to unlock Quick Cyloop. Being able to activate a quick, auto-cyloop mid-combo at the press of a button makes it feel much less intrusive and keeps the flow of combat at a steady pace. Quick Cyloop isn’t necessarily a late-game ability, either. It’s not locked behind story progression, so as long as you invest your skill points in the right places, you could theoretically get it pretty early on.

31:53-33:22 The finger snap analogy was a great way to showcase how the momentum functions in this game 2:23a.m. 10/26/2023

Some things like the combat and the skill could work, but they want to appeal to casual gamers. I do agree with your opinions about the game for not feeling like sonic, really hope with the next one theyll do it

even if Frontiers isn't great, Genshin winning is stupid in my opinion, I don't even think a gacha game should have the ability to seeing as its essentially gambling.

Sonic fans tried to ddos the game awards? Is there any proof of this?

27:00 To be fair I think because the End followed them after destroying their planet, they didn't have alot of time to build anything other than cyberspace and then they could only build weapons from then on. I mean some of them did travel to angel island to get to the Master Emerald so maybe they did a lot there.

I don't remember where I read it, but there was a quote I heard online that resonates with me about Frontiers: "This is the best 7/10 game I have ever played."

From all of what I've seen of this game, it seems that it has so much potential, but it feels like a first attempt. It feels like Sonic 1, where they are just testing the waters on what they can achieve with this open zone gameplay style.

Am I the only one who loves this guys voice and style of narration.

I'd like you to do a video on the insanity of Sonic fans and their inability to accept any level of criticism. I believe Ian Flynn once said that a psychologist had analyzed brand reverence among fans, and concluded that Sonic was the highest he had ever seen in his field.

Ok to be fair in that comparison to the Flash, how do you think he’s taking down bad guys at super speeds? Not just running into them, he runs and punches and gets into fist fights all the time. The Flash TV show that you pulled clips from shows him doing that all the time. That’s what makes speedsters cool seeing them fight at super speeds, same goes for Sonic honestly, nothing wrong with him throwing hands while still turning into a ball and tearing through things.

Imagine if instead of generic lifeless new islands, they used classic sonic islands. Angel island in open world.

Whitehead is professional developer, not some fan that Sega decided to pull out of the woodwork.

One of the reasons I loved SA2 so much was that even thought the levels didn't always make much sense in terms of realism, all the ramps. platforms and grind rails were usually contextual. Dash panels and springs were a little out there, but everything else felt like a natural part of the scenery. Sonic Forces felt like they said "Okay we want a bunch of big natural areas" And then when the map designers had finished, they were told "Now make it a Sonic level, oh and clock is ticking on that deadline." In fact whenever I see footage of the game it looks like a mockup some teenager who just got access to a free map and some generic resources made in their free time.

41:03 GENTLEMEN BEHOLD! MY GIANT PINBALL MACHINE!

That was the absolute worst pinball game in the series. Take me to Casinopolis Nights please

I don't know much about Frontiers, but I do agree with quite a few of your points and I wish Sonic games stopped trying to be so high budget and just had some simpler, shorter games with less of a grandeur, instead doing something like that Sonic VR romhack from a while ago where it's just a bunch of fun trials with new gimmicks experimented on. I do think Sonic 1 is one of the best games in the series, however :) That said, the one thing I don't get is your dismissal of the bullet hell shooter final boss. From what I saw, most hated it, but personally, even if it seems really poorly done and very mindless by bullet hell standards, a final boss (or a boss entirely) in a Sonic game being focused entirely on gameplay and testing your skill is a pretty good idea to me. Even in the classic games most bosses were filler that barely even tied itself to the gameplay well, with the best bosses being those that actually resemble the levels themselves more (S1's Labyrinth, CD's Collision Chaos and Stardust Speedway as examples) and the worst ones being the final bosses, that hid how pathetic they are by forcing you to no damage them for no reason, and with each of them getting worse until S3's final bosses resemble a glorified cutscene more than actual bosses. Mania tried to do better with it's gameplay focused Titanic Monarch 2 boss, but it was ultimately rather tedious and gimmicky. I think Sonic games should look at something like classic Castlevania or Metroid for boss inspiration, as some bosses in those games might even work better as Sonic bosses than actual Sonic bosses do (say, Metroid Fusion's B.O.X. fights) I feel the same about enemies: I really don't like how the solution to enemies being just a way to bounce off stuff or a thing to roll through without care in later Sonic games became to turn them into tedious combat encounters, but I wish they revisited the idea behind the Metropolis badniks and did something similar, where you do have to care about how you deal with them and dodge attacks in unique terrain.

The Koco are what are left over from the Ancients. They are the lost souls that trapped inside the Koco and your goals throughout the story are to help them move on to the afterlife. I thought the flashback cutscenes were supposed to make that obvious.

59:05-1:00:24 Yeah the homing attack or just attacking enemies in any sort of way is so SLOW it is the slowest homing attack in the series and as you said actively punishes the player for using it if you want the S rank in the stages, especially 1-2 however with that stage I feel it really wasn't tested because that's the only stage in the ENTIRE game btw that has a strict time limit and the way that Sonic moves and controls you have to be incredibly precise in that level but a lot more precise to what I feel is even intentional by the developers 3:30a.m. 10/26/2023

With that said, what are your current thoughts on Sonic Superstars? According to every hands on impressions I’ve seen thus far, it appears to be a spiritual successor to Mania, which itself was an evolution of the gameplay formula Sonic 3&Knuckles established. Although I doubt Superstars will be much of an improvement on the momentum based platforming formula the genesis games are known for, it at the very least seems to be doing a solid job replicating said formula. And considering how incredibly rare that is, I’m content with the product as it is, assuming the later levels which are still a mystery aren’t so bad that it ruins the experience. Honestly though, I’m just glad we’re getting a Sonic game I can hopefully recommend to family and friends again. I haven’t felt confident enough to do that since Mania came out.

I never even completed it, by the time I was only halfway through the second level I just couldn't stand it anymore. I un-installed it and never touched it again. Strange thing is that I even like some of the less popular Sonic Games, but this, Sonic Frontiers, pissed me off more than I can ever tell! I feel like I just wasted my money. Everyone was like "Oh wow, this is the best Sonic game ever!", "This game saved the Sonic franchise!" "It's what fans have wanted for so long, blah blah blah." Well I played it and was disappointed. This game was just NO FUN, I either got really bored, totally lost without any idea of where to go, or just plain annoyed. AGAIN, the only playable character is Sonic, despite the franchise having so many other characters. After beating the first level I just didn't fell like I'd progressed at all, and there's so many other things, too many to list. I get lost in an open world, the map is useless as it only shows you where you've been, those stupid annoying Koko things showing up whenever you stop, big enemies always "introducing" themselves EVERY time you encounter them, that stupid slot machine thing, a cutsceene that allways plays whenever you have 400 rings (or however many it was), speaking of rings, any rings you collected don't come back if you die, the game play is nothing like the other Sonic games like what we've seen for the past 10 years or so, and there's just so many other annoying things about this game. I wish steam would refund my money or let me exchange it for another game. I even liked Sonic Forces more than this, yes I said it.

Nice review of what is one of the most baffling Sonic games. Not just in terms of the game itself, but the reception from fans (and to a lesser extent, critics). We were all (rightfully) dunking on this game back when we got our first bit of gameplay but by the time the game released, the fanbase had already declared it a masterpiece despite ALL of the problems we saw back in June 2022 still being in the final game. Could just be me being an old, cynical asshat, but I get the impression that we've gone so long without an appealing mainline Sonic game (especially if you don't consider Mania to be a mainline game) that the fanbase will eat any slop up at this point out of desperation. I like your take that Sega going after "good review scores" is why so much of the game is just Sonic Team taking ideas and mechanics from recent, trendy games. I wonder how much of the blatant BotW influence was Sonic Team ACTUALLY wanting to make something like that, vs them feeling forced to make a game like that in order to make something with potential critical acclaim. It's sad either way cause even if they truly wanted to make a game like BotW, they utterly failed beyond surface level elements. Also, you ARE saying Ristar correctly!👍

Glad to see you back Blaze.

On your comment about Sonic having more combat options than homing attack: I agree that slowing down to fight enemies would be too much, as it would slow the game down forcefully. And I do think the fighting should be relegated to spin offs or some other extra material. However, I disagree with Sonic wouldn’t be good at throwing a punch, since the hedgehog has been fighting giant machines, ultimate life forms and gods for years. And he has shown to train in many games, both spiritually (SA1 JP description, explains why he gained new techniques after S3&k) and physically (Rivals 1 or 2 I forgot l, Battle and Advance 3. If they were to make Sonic throw a punch it would make perfect sense since he has lots of experience fighting master combatants.

42:32-43:30 That pinball history lesson was pretty neat and interesting 2:50a.m. 10/26/2023