Sonic Frontiers: A Rift Between The Formulas 

For anyone asking for a review of update 3 I will most likely not be doing a whole video on that so.. Here are my brief thoughts: Most of the new character stuff is a bunch of ideas that are not fleshed out at all and as they are right now they are at most an interesting proof of concept for what they could do with them in the future but nothing worth noting. As far as the difficulty debacle goes all I have to say is that sonic team tried to crank up the difficulty to the max but forgot that their game wasn't built with that level of difficulty in mind so it ends up pushing the systems way past their limits and giving you pure raw jank instead, there's a couple of good ideas there for the trials and bosses but they do a terrible job of communicating to the player what they should do. Finally there's the new cyberspace levels and I would consider those to be some of the very best content this game has to offer, they're designed with the spindash in mind, are very open and often have their own interesting and fun unique gimmicks to them Not all of them are home runs but there's a good amount of great stuff in there and I'd highly recommend trying out the update just for them. This comment is not supposed to be a very elaborate or fleshed out review of it, it's just meant to communicate my general thoughts on the update for anyone that was wondering. Anyways, thanks for watching the video!

Here’s to hoping we can look back at Frontiers years from now and say, “It was good then, but it paved the way for greater things!”

Its crazy how well sonic team put the spindash with the boost in the same game with it actually kind of fitting

Lil tip to make the spindash more fun. While doing the spindash you hold LT and boost is RT. If you let go of LT while still holding RT (boost) sonic will do that trick thing he does. I hope you understand my explanation. It's makes spindash even more fun

Not regurgitating information or common complaints made this video very refreshing, on top of the editing being well done.

Man this is geniunely the best Sonic video i've seen in a while, i love how you don't chain yourself with overused terms that completely lost all meaning in the fandom (AKA: Momentum) You don't repeat what everyone's sick and tired of hearing, Momentum = good | Automation = bad You carve out your own termology and use that to inform the rest of the video! i honestly think that's amazing and that your content provides something that the comunity is sorely missing

I feel like Frontiers wasn't perfect, but it was a step into an evolution of sorts. I personally think they should exclusively keep the "Air Boost" ability, but use the Spin Dash + momentum on the ground for their next title.

i was actually a little taken aback when you talked about the core similarity between adventure and classic being context sensitivity, because that makes SO much more sense than just saying that “momentum” is the main link between the two

Something I wanna mention in terms of context sensitivity, depth, and Sonic Adventure 2 is that it's very similar to Frontiers, as stated in this video. SA2 DOES have depth, but very seldom uses it. Stages that come to mind when I think about this are Green Forest, Sky Rail, Crazy Gadget, and Final Rush. Those stages are designed in a way where the player can just go crazy and find different ways to tackle an obstacle, at least in some cases. I haven't played Frontiers, but from what I've seen, and from what has been said in this video, Frontiers is kinda similar to this. It uses its surroundings in a way that wasn't really meant for it and recontextualizes ways to approach it (i.e. the spindash, rail launching). This could make the open world segments, and other areas of the game, more fun and rewarding, ultimately adding depth. That's just my take though. I don't know if it even makes that much sense (at least in terms of what's explained in this video), but that's just how I see it :))

FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT. Depth is a HUGE factor in sonic games that I been yearning for, for years we've suffered through stiff gameplay and sonic team actually cares now, I love it.

Absolutely invredible video, never really thought of the differences in SA1 and 2 like that. Btw frontiers for me was always a cool game but after update 2 it got to be my favorite 3D sonic game specifically because of the freedom that offered

I knew kishimoto mentioned that he was going to play Spark 3 when someone asked him about it, but I didn’t know HE ACTUALLY CONFIRMED THAT HE PLAYED IT AND TOOK INSPIRATION FROM IT FOR UPDATE 3! After hearing about this I’m connecting a lot of dots about all those slopes in update 3 that you boost off of to gain height, and the loops in cyberspace with less scripting and a camera angle that stays behind sonic! (very Spark 3 things to include). It’s crazy to me that a dev team that used to look so stubborn and aloof to the fans, consistently giving us things we didn’t ask for and failing to execute them well, is truly, genuinely listening to us. It finally feels like the people making this series have realized what the appeal of the series is, and I couldn’t be happier. Also, this was an excellent video! Very thoroughly entertaining to watch, and for once I think the terms one of these videos tries to define are actually useful and don’t feel arbitrary. I think I will adopt these terms going forward in my discussions on platformers. Thank you!

Good job Sonic Team Now put him in a open city!! Maybe a open zone Station Square? With an open city full of buildings and structures, there would be a lot of places to integrate natural rails. They don’t have to just, float there in the air

I was actually shocked when I saw how little subs you have, I was fully under the impression I was watching some huge, well established sonic content creator. Your stuff is super high quality, it’s only a matter of time before you start exploding in popularity. Good luck with content creation my man!

This is such a fresh perspective i love it. Frontiers is my second favorite sonic game yet i see how the initial release was kind of a bland mess, but even then i could see that sonic team was trying to actually achieve something with the way it made me feel like i was back in the 2000s. Update 2 changed the whole game just wow. Great video

They didn’t just use boost as the basis for Frontiers. Frontiers is a boost game based on Forces, which is a boost game based on LOST WORLD… which in case you didn’t know, is not a boost game. The boost gameplay in Forces and Frontiers (specifically Cyber Space) feels so off because it’s still using Lost World’s gameplay engine, which is so backwards because that game plays the least like what I’d expect a Sonic game to play like. Honestly for the next game, I need them to just make the gameplay from scratch entirely. I do not want every future open world game to feel like some updated version of Lost World forever. This is a whole new formula, it deserves a completely new character controller, new physics, etc.

With how it works in frontiers, the spindash is basically a re-skin of the old boost from games like unleashed (with a few changes of course like being able to turn left and right). If and when they make a new open world game, i hope that they keep the boost but make it more similar to how the spindash works in frontiers because, in my opinion, boost is the gameplay style that makes sonic feel the fastest compared to everything else

The context sensitivity aspect makes this video stand out from all the rest. Amazing content!

I feel like I'm the only one who likes how Sonic controls in the cyberspace levels. I like how fast he is. He's not too fast. Not too slow. I can actually react to what's happening on screen. S ranking every level was fun. Especially when they're all pretty short. I don't mind trying perfect a level when they're only a few minutes long.

I never thought that a hardcore Sonic fan gets hyped about the legendary spindash move and make a deep analysis video about. _This is truly a Sonic fan moment, right here._

Thumbnail is exactly what I feel when playing Frontiers. Literally feels like the game could be called Sonic Adventure Unleashed. The addition of the spin dash & update 3’s multiple characters in the open world feel like elements of Sonic Adventure. The Modern aesthetic, combat, cyberspace, & Titan battles borrow similar elements from Unleashed. The “phantom rush” mechanic feels like a stand in for an Unleashed gauge. Not to mention the game makes callbacks to both Adventure & Unleashed specifically.

The best part about the Jump Deceleration slider was the fact that they didn't advertise it. Like the Spindash was advertised and what everyone was hype for, but after update 2 you just boot the game and theres a notification that's like "oh btw you got momentum now" Like, THAT was wild lol

This vid was amazing, i hope in the future they keep both the spindash and boost, it could work well Boost as a constant speed that keeps you grounded Spindash being affected by terrain, initially faster than boost, then decreasing becoming slower than it, and in uphill it looses more speed and uphill it gains more becoming faster than boost again This combination would give you two main states, boosting and spindash similar to how the classic games gave you normal running and spindash

I haven't played Frontiers yet (Mostly because of the price and my limited hardware) but this video makes me want to play the game even more, from the bottom of my heart thank you.

This is one of the best Sonic video essays I've ever seen. The way you laid out each concept and seamlessly connected them to the next part of the video was brilliant, and it's clear you are very thoughtful about how and why some things work and why people prefer those things, something that's sorely missing in the fandom. Instant sub. Also I'm very interested to hear what you think of Update 3 with regards to Sonic Team's move towards depth. I won't spoil anything but I believe that a lot of changes made in that update are leaning even further towards the depth side of the spectrum.

Can you imagine how hard Shadow’s theme would go in the sequel? David has Everett Jason has Johnny and Kirk NEEDS Kellin

Bro bro called me out at 0:06 toy story spiderman and sonic were everything to me back them and still are very important to me almost 20 years later ❤

I personally had the same issues as you did with frontiers, except maybe the cyberspace levels (the ones in 3D that is). The only 3d sonic game I played before frontiers was sonic colors so I didn't really know about the momentum and spindash techs of SA1, but I really think that's what I'm like a lot in future sonic games, and I think that's why I didn't completely hate frontiers at the launch. I didn't play it since I finished the story yeah, but I liked what was good about it. But know that I know about all those new things that they added, thanks to your video, I think I'm gonna enjoy doing à new game +. So Even if it wasn't the original purpose of this video, thank you for making it 😁😁

When you started listing the issues with frontiers' overworld, I was curious because of how much I enjoyed myself with the game. I agreed that these were problems, so why did I still have so much fun? Aside from personal taste, of course. So I took a look back at how I was playing the game myself. I for one, love Sonic's controls in Frontiers and the updates just made the game one of my favorites in the series. Sonic's controls are tight which let me get used to them quick. So I was able to try stuff out. Then I realized that I was doing everything in my power to just.. do my own thing with the level design. I did NOT complete most of the obstacles in the overworld in their intended way. I either did it in a manner that skips the lengthier automation, or in a manner that gave me a good challenge. Ironically, I like to think this was intended given there's rarely any concrete methods that lock you into going through these obstacles the intended way. Though that could be me giving the game too much credit, as I am one to usually try to meet games at their level. You know it's a good video when it makes you think about the way you do things like this.

Frontiers is interesting because it released in a rough state, where it really felt like an awkward shuffle into a new era, instead of something confident, like Adventure, and Unleashed. Feedback really helped it find it's worth with them taking criticism to heart with updates 2 and 3. It is honestly crazy to me how the developers did not understand, until after release, a open world Sonic game needs momentum mechanics to really succeed. Despite this, Updated Frontiers works BECAUSE it is a mix of automation/boost mechanics and momentum/adventure mechanics

I liked Frontiers when it came out but after a Few months all it’s problems became too apparent to bear. Traversing the Islands was Boring, Platforming was Super Basic and Automated, The Combat and Bosses were Mindless button mashing and too reliant on Spectacle. Then Update 2 came out and it felt like the Shackles were finally removed thanks to the Momentum Sliders and Spindash. Traversing the islands was finally fun and the Koco Challenges were actually Engaging instead of Automated. It gave me a Sliver of Hope for the Future but I was still mostly negative. Finally Update 3 Dropped and it was almost Everything I wanted to Base Game to be. I don’t want to write a Whole Essay so let’s just say I’m Hopeful for the Future of this Franchise.

this video was amazing! I hope you also cover update 3 cause I'd love to hear your thoughts on it (don't feel the need to rush it out tho if you do decide to talk about it)

Honestly, your opinions about SA2 were what I was thinking ever since I played it. You went really in-depth into this discussion and articulated everything clearly and concisely, great video.

Sonic team: oh you don’t like our game? How unfortunate… for you

I notice that people that have SA1 as their favorite 3D game have sophisticated taste and a high level of intelligence 🧐 But on a serious note, you put how I’ve felt about the 3D games into words that I never could. Excellent video.

this video was extremely well put together, and i think it’s safe to say that you really did manage to put a lot of weird feelings and ideas into understandable and concrete words. your explanations were always spot on and gave a very objective yet critical view of this franchise and all its game mechanics. id say you deserve a lot more recognition and subscribers for such quality content. you definitely earned my subscription and appreciation. well done brother 💯🔥

sonic frontiers was the first sonic game I ever played, and I thought it was great! And I didn't even know there was a thing called rail launching. My left controller kept dragging me to the left, which made it really hard to play, so I felt like the cyber space areas was just hard and difficult. I also didn't know that I could spindash, my way around. I first discoverd that in the newest update. But it's one of my favourtie things to do! This video made me really want to play the game once more, just to try out all these cool things you did, like skipping so much in the cyber space areas, to make your time so short. And at the end of this video I got really emotional because I just love Sonic so much, great video I loved it!

Been saying what you've said about Sonic Adventure in comparison to Sonic Adventure 2 for years, felt good to hear someone else say it. And yeah, it's really crazy seeing Sonic Team actually listen to the fans for once when it's been so long since Sonic had a good game. Great video!!

Well done video. If Sonic team were to design the next game from the ground up with the principles you laid out for taking advantage of context sensivity with 3d momentum platforming, the next game in this series could be the "Sonic 2" of 3d sonic games. Meaning, a huge step forward which makes it an alltime classic. (Notice i didnt say sonic 3. Sonic 3 in the franchise represents a mastery of all the fundamental design principles of the classic formula and i would expect that out of a later entry).

Holy crap i expected this video to have like millions of views lol, this is really well made

11:38 that's it. i subscribed. that deserves it.

Now I am curious of your thoughts about the Drop Dash, in regards to your momentum argument from earlier in the video, and the fact that along with both the Boost & Spin Dash, it’s also in Sonic Frontiers. Lastly whoa more Sonic fans NEED to watch this video for at least for the momentum discussion alone.

19:29 Okay guy, hear me out, writers don't need previous experiences with the frachise they're writing for, usually it's an other person job to check that writers "inexperience with series" and makes sure it stays consistent My pint came a bit wonky, There's a J reviews video that does my same point, I think it's his Lost World one?

This is straight up one of the best videos I've seen discussing the design of Sonic games. I hope your channel starts becoming more popular, it'd be well deserved.

I think your definitions of the two different styles, Depth and Precision, are perfect and I completely agree (SA2B is still peak tho). And your "review" of the initial state of Frontiers (until the section of Rail Grinding) is basically how I felt about the game too (screw Chaos Island fr)

I think saying SA2 is a series of hallways is a disservice to how the new gameplay moves introduced by it create new gameplay possibilities. It's not about exploiting the map design, but SA1 wasn't either, at least intentionally. The spin dash allowing the player to take advantage of the crammed level design was a fluke similar to the rail launching. SA2 made an effort to actually give the player proper alternative routes instead of having them spin dash their way around the level design, hence the larger stages. Yes, it can be argued that the game still doesn't offer too much in the way of alternative routes but they are there. In fact, i'd argue SA2's *bespoke* level design is a bit more open ended than SA1 just because most of SA1's alternative gameplay options boild down to jumping outside the intended path with a spin dash. That gives it some extra depth like you said but i can't see how that was planned. Again, much like rail launching in Frontiers. SA1 and SA2 are two games of pretty similar design philosophy, it's just that SA2 tried to steer the player back to low level decision making and forced the player to engage with the obstacle coursing a bit more. I'm not of the camp that believes Sonic should just be about speed and exploiting said speed, the core gameplay is still that of a platformer. The best Sonic games are always the ones that offer a good balancing act of both speed and platforming.

this is one of the best videos about sonic i've seen in a LONG time. genuinely.

Finally sonic. Now review the DLC

This gotta be one my favorite Sonic video essays. You basically summarized the differences between the Adventure and Boost formulas, and the problem I had with Frontiers opting to use boost, instead of the Adventure formula. I really hope they'll make the next game even better than Frontiers.

Amazing video dude, loved how accurately you were able to pinpoint the varying design philosophies throughout the series’ history and how they apply to the most recent installments, that’s the kinda thing that I really appreciate when it comes to discussing video games and I’ll definitely be sticking around to see more of what you put out. Great work!!

I really like your analysis and understanding of platformers and Sonic. I completely agree with what you said about 3D Sonic and momentum, and how not a single one actually used it the way the genesis games+mania did. I feel like you should have shown Unleashed and Generations as well when you said "While momentum is technically in these games", because those games are programed to handle jumping off, and running up and down slopes in similar scenarios. It still ties back into that by what you mean by all of them never make you think about using Sonic's physics in these games.

Frontiers is the closest we ever got to a new Adventure style game. The boost works quite differently here. Plus we now have multiple playable characters. No branching storylines though. This along with Speed Simulator on Roblox, which has good physics.

I appreciate you isolating the specific concept about momentum in Sonic games.

I was never really interested in the so called momentum of the adventure games, however this video really sold it's importance to me, simoly because it exemplifies what the exact same game feels like with or without mechanics that compliment the terrain. Having played frontiers when it was first released, after discovering the rail launch, and then now after the third update this really is a game changer. Hope SEGA leans into it even further

i felt like you should have mentioned stuff like the new platform challenges they added into some parts of the open zone in update 2, not to mention the addition of the power boost on cyberspace which does fix the slow speed on the 2d stages, but this is still a great video

Sonic Frontiers looked like a playground for Sonic Team to test some ideas and concepts, for example, I like how boost is now a method to run faster but to stay on the ground and the spindash is another to get faster, but with momentum and flying by everything.

this is a really well-made video, liked the editing and your sense of humor was casual and didnt draw attention to itself beyond the point. best video ever

I was very impressed by this video, and while I do feel differently about certain aspects, I think you really nailed that distinction between Depth and Precision. Thanks for bringing such an interesting subject to my attention!

I agree with the overall criticism of the momentum debacle. That's actually a really good way to look at it. However, I disagree that SA2 does a poor job at being in the middle. I think it offers the precision platforming done well, and still has areas where you can offer some depth. The rail grinding tower in a space stage comes to mind. And even if the action stages lean higher on the precision side than you'd prefer, the treasure hunting stages are literally designed to offer you the chance to flex your muscles for that depth itch. Because I don't personally find joy in the need to "cheese" the physics and push them to their limits, but I know the games should have the options to do that for others. I do prefer the concept of precision platforming, which is why I highly prefer SA2 over its predecessor. However, I don't simply lump it up with enjoyment to boost games. Because while Unleashed was really good, I didn't care for the others other until Frontiers. And while I agree with that momentum complaint, I do think SA2 plays a lot differently since you still deal with your inertia. The boost games you can stop on a dime and it feels really stiff. However, the adventure titles have multiple speed tiers and you will still run for a bit even after landing from a jump and such. That "momentum" or inertia is what I vastly prefer. More varied acceleration. That and the slide. I loved the storybook games, which were beta boost titles, but the boost games relying on the boost for everything and not Sonic's wider moveset with the slide (and maybe bringing the bounce bracelet back) make them less fun. Even if it's less viable options (because let's be real, you're just abusing the spindash everywhere otherwise in SA), I like being tested with a variety of a moveset (I'm a Zelda player for a reason, and hint: it's not for the overrated open world ones). But yea, as you mentioned, update 2 and the new setting were great!

Incredibly enjoyable and thoughtful video, this is the type of quality content that I am on RU-vid for. Thank you

this video just proves that we as fans dont know what we want no matter how much we pretend we do

This was a phenomenal video! You've expressed my thoughts on design philosophy better than I could and I'm a game developer!

I've been trying to explain the idea of "depth vs precision" to sonic fans for a year but they'd always call me stupid! I called the dichotomy "Expressive vs Arcade gameplay" which I think is less clear. Definitely going to be using your terminology from now on lol! Very refreshing to see a well thought out video on the topic, even if my preferences exist on the opposite side of the spectrum XD (Although with update 3 it's clear us precision fans haven't been forgotten ;))

I see so it's not just momentum, you need context sensitivity too. You break out of the intended pathway that the first time player uses and make your own pathway, which requires knowledge and memorization of the game that the first time player has yet to gain.

My biggest issue with Frontiers wasn’t even Sonic’s physics. It’s the level design and art direction. When the game was first revealed someone said it looks like Sonic in an Unreal Engine test level, & that’s so true 😂.

That was a crazy cool take ! Now this makes me think differently about the parts i liked and didnt like about Frontiers ! I've never really seen anyone break the gameplay characteristics down like this, so interesting !

If you havent played the new cyberspace levels in Update 3, you should play them. I think you might like them.

Really great video the only one I’ve seen that properly explains what the spindash and turning off jump deacceleration added to the game, even on supposedly hardcore gaming forums people will talk about the spindash like it’s just the boost or the dreadful one from Lost World when in reality it’s a massively supped up SA1 spindash that rewrites the entire feel of the game for the better

Spindash makes even most 2d cyber stages tolerable. Truly a blessing.

This is the most honest review for Sonic Frontiers I have ever seen on RU-vid.

Hidden gem of a youtuber hope your channel grows well (also I agree with your opinions I was considering playing update 2 but your video has assured me that its actually worth going back to frontiers to finish it!)

Great video! A lot of your points were very well articulated, and your break down of depth vs precision put into words very well a lot of the feelings I had about Sonic's movement in various games.

i love how you analyzed what momentum is because every youtuber/ fan keeps bringing it up without actually knowing what they want, overall great video!!

I’m the kid who grew up specifically with sonic x and almost nothing else aside from the mobile versions of the classic games and mania later on

I love Sonic Frontiers and it makes me hopeful for the future of Sonic Franchise

this may be a hot take, but Sonic Unleashed's daytime level formula is still my favorite in the entire series.

I personally think they should exclusively keep the "Air Boost" ability, but use the Spin Dash + momentum on the ground for their next title.

found this video at the perfect time because i couldn’t properly fully explain what made me like adventure era gameplay more than boost sonic games. i knew i liked exploring the levels more and the physics but i mostly said that i didn’t like boost because i was bad at it, but seeing you dissect the two styles i can see clearer why boost isn’t for me.

Can I say this analysis really well written and objectively interesting to discuss? You see something that others didn't. You pointed out fair and valid reasons without trashing one another. You explained in a simple and fun way yet to me, you opened my eyes to new and interesting observation. You presented the potential without too obsessive. You speak all the facts and potentials clearly. That's kind of rare to these days especially in sonic discourse. And the fact it randomly showed up in my feed(youtube algorithm obv), I can say I'm glad watching this. I dunno if you were willing to do another vid after update 3, but I'm glad you made this video. And i salute you for this Note : 12:51 made my day 🤣

One of the greatest test to see if you were a real fan of sonic is having never played a single official sonic game until you were old enough to buy them with your own money😂

I would agree that it seems like Sonic is going in a great direction again. On story and character side of things too with both this game and The Murder of Sonic, and even Cream coming back in Dream Team. Also speaking of which, I'm watching this after Dream Team's announcement and although that game's exclusivity is unfortunate, I am excited it seems to be yet another open 3D platformer with a narrative with Ian involved. I mostly just hope it's good (and that my macbook can play it). If so that's 4 games so far that make me happy to be a Sonic fan. The series is REALLY in a good place right now.

Watching you talk about rail launching does make me appreciate the game's updates more. Not only did they leave the rail launching up. They made some platforming challenges that are basically utilizing it later on

now that frontiers is finished and has been out for almost a year ive come to realize that i really love this game and i think it is the perfect showing of the future and i am so exited for the next step of sonic the hedgehog. I think if the level design of the next game is similar to the new cyberspace stages from update 3 (if they return) and if the open zone is built more for the spindash and boost jumping and has the formulas and ideas from frontiers with just a bit more polish. i think we are looking at a bright future for our blue friend. i terms of story and writing i think it will only get better from here on out. ian flyn has been killing it with idw and i really liked frontier's story. the titan boss fights are visually and audible incredible and at a base level gameplay wise they are too however i think fine tuning the combat system in the game and fixing some of the jank will make them soo much better. right now with update 3 i can say whole heartedly that this is my personal favorite sonic game unleashed being number 2 and i cant wait for what comes next.

the one thing about sonic frontiers that i do hope changes dramatically for the next game is the combat, mainly because i know that sega is capable of making devil may cry level combat 28 times over for a single game because i have played pso2

Your closing statement about defining what we like/dislike in games is very important. This is something I'm often pushing for in my own work. I dont think describing our desires as "context sensitivity" is quite right as a broad, blanket term, but it is fundamentally correct - we want Sonic to actually interact with the terrain in meaningful ways. This means we need good controls *and* good level design to take advantage of them.

Great essay Dunkey, love to see new perspectives on the community

Sonic Frontiers is what happens when you don't understand what your game actually is. The entire core design premise of Frontiers is fundamentally antithetical to what defines not only Sonic gameplay, but good game design in general. It takes the worst aspects of the 3D games and just doubles down on them while injecting the game with a massive amount of empty, functionally negative space so that places can hold forward and watch Sonic run. Woo. Sonic as a character is about speed, but Sonic's gameplay was never about just going fast, it was about the physical dynamics of Sonic's movement and interactions, and the conservation of momentum using skillful platforming in order to achieve speed. Speed isn't the game in Sonic, it's the reward for playing well, and modern Sonic games (mostly the 3D ones) have completely forgotten that, only to replace it with a hollowed-out facsimile of the real thing.

This was fun! I liked hearing your thoughts, and your points about context sensitivity as opposed to momentum were very interesting and pretty different from what I'm used to hearing in all the sonic circles of the internet (that I often find myself avoiding most of the time). Hearing your thoughts on the writing and story didn't come as much of a surprise, I've seen the general sentiment around that this feels like a return to form, which is something I don't really agree all that much with. Personally I was kinda turned off by the general tone of the game and Ian Flynn's writing for the characters if I'm being honest. While I generally enjoyed the plots of older Sonic games, what I really ended up latching onto story-wise was the generally goofy and cheesy dialogue. I never think of or really care about the backstory of the echidnas, but I will always remember "Hey, ya big drip! Where ya goin?" A lot of the references felt a little ham fisted to me, and the Tails cutscene on Chaos kinda just felt like Ian sitting on the couch with me going "don't worry i fixed tails are you happy? I bet you're happy aren't you? Don't worry these characters are cool again" meanwhile I'm just sitting there like "okay." The titan fights were sick af tho I personally found Cyberspace to be the highlight of my initial playthrough, and only really had a problem with the 2D sections because Sonic felt weird in them. He felt a little off in the 3D ones too but I kinda started thinking about it as an extension of the "memorize the level" philosophy Sonic had, only now it's also applied to the character's control. Gotta know the level and the way Sonic moves. Though I definitely agree that Update 2 was really really great and improved the general gameplay and feel by adding the spin dash and the jump deceleration slider! If I were to offer my two cents on Frontiers I'd say in a lot of ways it kinda feels like Lost World expanded? Like, the homing attack and double jump are on two separate buttons, you can climb and run on walls, if you put the game in top speed mode the boost basically functions as a Run Button (especially cuz Sonic's top speed without boosting is basically just a leisurely stroll). I dunno it just feels a whole heck of a lot like Lost World to me, which I'm fine with cuz I like that game (or at least the Wii U version) and always found it as a fun example of Sonic Team's tendency to try new things every so often. I wouldn't go so far as to say Frontiers feels like Sonic Team "cares again" - though that might just be because I thought Lost World was pretty good - but it does feel like Sonic's on a pretty good path now, or at least an interesting one. Great video! I really enjoyed it!

Your depth v precision concept perfectly contextualizes the sonic games. & i didn’t even know abt those physics changes in the frontiers updates. i gave up on the dlc but i may give frontiers another try after this video. great video! can’t wait to see ur thoughts on the dlc haha

Thought this had 200k views, not 200. Great job! I appreciate your saying something unique!

This got to be the most interesting Sonic video I've seen in a while

Interesting video here. I do have a few things I disagree on however. One, I think there is a difference between rolling down a hill, and boosting down a hill. Rolling gradually increases your speed, however, boosting does not. Two I don't think the boost or 3D spindash trivializes the core loop because at it's core, it's still about maintaining speed through good movement. Something I have purposed in the past is getting rid of the slide and adding back rolling. That way you could combine boosting with rolling and increase your speed even further by rolling (for example downhill) rather than boosting alone. Thus, adding a momentum based mechanic to play around with so players can test how fast they can push Sonic to go. Something else I would say for the Adventure style is adding rolling back to take advantage of momentum which you mention in the video isn't used to it's full potential in 3D Sonic. Both of these I think would add a little something extra to both styles for people to play around with. I hope I'm making sense here.

Very good vid and I like how you presented your points! I think this vid made me realize for what exact reason SA2 never clicked with me, even

Fantastic video,memes were indeed very funny,the stuff about the blue dog turning into ball was great too,but memes were very funny,indeed,made me go hehe

This was a cool vid & I'm def gonna use that new term u used here. I like frontiers as a whole but 1 thing I think is great bout the open zone formula was it paved a way for the franchise to find a real answer for both precision & context sensitivity. I don't think it can be denied that boost for MANY ppl sonic fans or otherwise got into speedrunnin a sonic game cus it gave u that immediate & continuous burst of speed & said now control this & u'll go fast the entire time. It gave a strong sense of flow when u used it right. I don't think it's impossible to find a mixture of the 2 styles & wut they offer as to me they're 2 sides of the same coin however for the time being I thought it best the OZ handled itself in a way more akin to Adv while CS was more like boost from say colors. I kinda got this at 1st but it was rough & it seems wit all the updates by THIS point & also takin into account kishimotos' own comments on twitter while boost isn't gonna be abandoned they want to C how far they can go in terms of that "context sensitivity"(he said adv but it's too good of a term to NOT USE imo lol). ALSO THX FOR SAYIN ADV ISN'T CLASSICS IN 3D MY GOD I HATE THAT SHIT!

You forgot to mention the new update 2 Koko platforms, those are genuinely good

Well, what can I say, you sure had your unique perspective and it was plenty refreshing and informative! Your take on depth vs precision and context-sensitive options is now something I will carry with me when trying to put into words how I feel about video games. It certainly makes a really compelling case for how Frontiers should have been more Adventure-like, and you did point out yourself that they've been leaning more towards that direction. (I am a little surprised you didn't mention how the spindash needs to be unlocked, but I guess one does run around in Frontiers quite a bit.) I agree with you that the new updates addressing people's complaints is really promising, or at least it shows that the people in charge care about feedback on the games and about improving the games thanks to it. They even patched the game a fourth time, tweaking some of the issues people had with The Final Horizon, after the whole DLC roadmap was supposed to be over! It's not a perfect patch, but its existence speaks volumes by itself. Even in terms of story, that's what we got The Final Horizon for in the first place. I'm not sure if this will lead to excellent Sonic games or anything, but it's nice to see, for sure. Also, my condolences for the Mania to Forces pipeline

Great video, you make an interesting point about SA2 I don't think you are necessarily wrong but I personally really enjoy some of SA2's levels.

This makes me want to buy frontiers now, I thought it would be mid. Took a break after generations and only started playing mania and origins. Now I see this game and hope for future sonic games I’m more inclined to play future sonic games

Now this is good sonic content, genuine conversation being had with well thought out research and info