Sonic Frontiers Combat is a COMPLETE Mess 

The main issue is that Sonic and the button layout was designed with platforming and exploration first and combat second. If we truly want a DMC-like Sonic game, Sonic Team would have to prioritize high-speed combat first. And it is possible. Spark the Electric Jester 3 is proof that you can marry the 2 concepts into a cohesive experience, but it has to be planned out from the start

Just to clarify, since I'm not sure if I explained my point very well: I think Frontiers combat has promise but the skill moves replacing his normal moves is a huge step in the wrong direction. It prevents you from performing specific normal actions. Also I don't use Auto Combo

The best way to describe Frontiers combat is like DMC 5 Dante having 5 versions of Stinger that last 15 seconds that all do the same thing instead of having summon swords for DSD

The issue I have with sonic Frontiers' combat is the enemies do not have any special interactions with your moves. The enemies you fight traditionally have no cool animations. The death scissors from DMC 5 is a great example. when you break the scissors, you can kill it easily by attacking the head. I wish parrying enemies gave them special combo properties or put them in situations where you can volley them into one another. The enemies you have to use movement on to break through their defenses was a mechanic they should have implemented more & evolved upon.

Me personally, I haven't had issue with the controls not doing what I want them to. My biggest gripe with the combat is the shallow enemy design in terms of their movesets, and the fact that you can upgrade your power to a point where enemies go down in a couple hits before I can even get a proper combo started.

1:58 HE DID HIS FIRST SHAMELESS PLUG. HE'S ON HIS WAY UP

was waitin for this one. its good to see someone who actually knows about action games talkin about combat since i kept seeing ppl argue about frontiers combat for months after it released.

They really need a better way to input moves. Even if it's something as simple as "hold R1 and then press one of the face buttons to do a special move" that a bunch of other games already do, at least it would be way less likely to interrupt Sonic's more overall movement/attacks. Now you might be thinking "but wait, isn't R1 used for dodging to the right or quickstepping?" Well another change I hope is for them to just outright remove quickstepping. Outside of very specific minibosses and platforming challenges, there's like virtually no use for quickstepping in Frontiers, aside from messing with some movement physics but that's pretty much entirely unintentional on the game's part. We should only really have one dodge button in a full 3D environment, full stop. To add to that, dodging barely has any utility in this game whatsoever. Why dodge when you can parry with the easiest and most risk-free parry known to man? Defense options need a rework. I've been playing the Ys series recently and there's a really cool system in Ys VIII where perfect dodges (or Flash Move as it's called in-game) slow down time and make you invincible for a few seconds, and perfect parries (also known as Flash Guards) also nullify damage, but instead of slowdown, give you critical hits and increases your meter for skills for the same short time as Flash Moves. I think both these kinds of systems would work well for Sonic in an action game format, he's the "fastest thing alive", so why not reward players for quick precision? And on the topic of the parry and its timing, I think there's a way where it could maybe exist in its current form, but also be nerfed reasonably. Basically, remove the ability to be able to save yourself with it *after* you get damaged, make it so that you can't infinitely hover in the air, and turn it into a guard. Simple as. So in order to get an actual parry, you'd need to time a guard accordingly as the attack lands to get the most benefit. The Star Wars Jedi games (Fallen Order and Survivor) already kinda do this whole guard/parry system, actually. Another cool thing those games do is have parry timing be more strict depending on the difficulty you're playing on, so harder difficulties would require more precise timing for parries. This makes it so that casual fans who want to enjoy the story and explore don't feel gated or filtered, but also players who really want a challenge or to get pushed to their limits still have that option. (Oh, and give us more relentless enemies on harder difficulties, because even on Hard, Frontiers still feels like a cakewalk lmao) I loved Sonic Frontiers but I still feel like it could do way more with what they've set up, and a lot of things are holding it back. Sonic Team has been paying a lot more attention to fans as of recent and taking feedback, so I hope they reconsider a lot of Frontiers' elements for the next game instead of throwing it all out and trying something completely different again. This video was great in describing all my general frustrations with Frontiers' combat. I hope one day I can summon up the willpower to make my own little critique/wishlist video on what I'd love to see improved on lol TL;DR: I want Sonic Team to reconsider control layouts, difficulties and how they modify the experience, and better defensive options that actually serve a purpose.

You used to have to time the parry but playtesters were so bad at the game that Sonic Team removed needing to time your parry. I think in hard/extreme mode, you have to time your parry but it isn’t like that.

After the first island, basic grunt enemies can call up shields in the middle of your combo that will deflect you, and you can only get rid of it with a cyloop, and when dispeled with the instant cyloop, they'll just pull it up again. That more than anything else just killed my motivation to fight anything, and made me skip mobs altogether for the rest of the game, if you think that's petty, time how long it takes to run a circle around an enemy or a group of enemies, and multiply that by the amount of encounters you're likely to come by, per island, per playthrough, and then that should put things in perspective.

When the guardians aka the major enemies you use your move set the least, is the best combat the game has to offer outside of the bosses then that’s a problem. I like most of them, however it’s mostly because of how they switch up the platforming not the combat. The combat outside of those, is best with the Titan bosses but just as when they get good, the game takes a nose dive with Supreme and The End. Basic enemies either don’t offer much variety or are really easy to defeat in a matter of like two hits. Here are some suggestions I’d like to give for a future game and/or any possible fixes they can do with Update 3: 1.) Make the parries timing WAY shorter. Sonic shouldn’t be up in the air for several seconds before going back to his normal stance. If Sonic Team still wants to be generous, then perhaps a 1-2 second delay might work. It’ll at least make the combat feel way more engaging 2.) Make it easier to execute both platform and combat moves. This weird in between of when either set triggers in the game is really annoying on both sides. Platforming and doing a homing attack to an enemy, only for me to do an attack sucks because the game can’t decide which enemies should trigger combat mode and which ones should trigger platforming. If an enemy is placed as part of the level design, I shouldn’t be able to activate an attack unless I actually put in the inputs. Not just doing the normal jump homing attack 3.) Have regular enemies have a bit more health, more enemy patterns, and ways to defeat them. This will make combat far more intense and make the player actually think of which moves to execute instead of just mashing buttons. Having different enemy patterns will also make fights feel more unique 4.) Make different moves do different things to enemies. There aren’t that many moves like this in the game which is a shame because it would make combat feel more in depth and rewarding for more expert players and just overall better to use. Phantom Rush itself would be way cooler of an idea if the combat was better designed. Exploiting enemies weak point or cool down and unleashing Phantom Rush after using a move would be neat 5.) Have more moves for the skill tree or unlock the abilities slower. Having all of your moves outside of the story ones by the end of Ares makes the game way easier. The reason why some action games are harder jn the beginning is because you have to utilize what you have in your favor 6.) Make upgradable moves be the same move and not be counted as a different move with a different input. Makes the previous move useless which itself defeats the purpose of separating the move but also adding the upgradable move as a different attack makes the control problems during combat worse Those are all the ones I can think of. Overall, while I like Frontiers, the combat is one of the elements of the game where it has so much potential but right now it’s meh. Update 3 could actually fix a couple of these points but we’ll have to wait and see for the next Sonic game and going by the updates, I really hope this means they learn a lot from here as they learned a lot from Forces when making Frontiers. Great video :)

"Why am I spamming ki blasts like I'm Vegeta on a loosing streak while I just want to jump?!" This made my day 🤣

I love good combat, too. I hate overlapping inputs so thanks for the video and your concise and detailed thoughts. I randomly played some action games which suck but are really fun.

I love the combat on this game honestly

"I just want to jump after a boost, why am I spamming ki blasts like Vegeta on a losing streak?", that's it, you get my like and subscribe xDD

8:44 my biggest issue with the skill tree

Next time, i'm going to talk about another DMC weapon that rivals Lucifer in its complexity" ARBITER! ARBITER, CALLING IT NOW! ARBITEEEEEEEEEER Kidding aside, *wow* you even mentioned a Legend of Spyro game near the end! I keep forgetting that the third game, Dawn of the Dragon, is on its way to being a Character Action type game. I've never played it, but i would be very interested in seeing what your own findings on it would be. You'd probably appreciate it more if you played the preceding games, to see where DotD's combat came from vs how it ended up being. But that's not a strict requirement, since looking at the combat on its own is very important too. Though i've never played a Bayonetta game either (or Hi-Fi Rush), i've heard both games allow the player to equip and unequip the different attacks you can buy from the store. Do you think Sonic Frontiers or a game with combat like Frontiers could benefit off something interesting? Or would it be better to simply re-evaluate the already present combat moves for a future game, with these critiques in mind? Soulstice also works with equipping and unequipping abilities, though in a different way. The player character's dead sister, Lute, accompanies Briar (said player character) at all times and can do some passive attacks and activate a Blue or Red forcefield, to harm opponents of the corresponding color. Which can, if active too long, put her in an Overcharge state which renders her unavailable for a few seconds. As well as various Counterattacks, if you press the button prompt in time. Like slowing down enemies, outright disrupting their attack animation, or sending projectiles back. Briar does the actual physical damage, with an arrangement of seven weapons over the course of the game. All weapons have similar inputs with unique moves and similar purposes, and can be swapped between at any moment. Both sisters have abilities that have to be unlocked with a currency. LUTE ON THE OTHER HAND She has a *colossal* skill tree at her disposal. There's a lot there that i won't get into right now, but i'd say there's a lot of potential for making "builds" of a sort as well. Even things that can weaponize Lute's overcharge state, if you don't mind percentage knocks to end-of-battle scores. But i've found that there's also a downside to some of them, mainly Lute auto-Countering some enemies even if you miss the button prompt It can disturb setting up combos and attacks and just mess with you. That's where Soulstice takes a page from Bayonetta as well (aside from the rankings). You can unequip specific skills and get a *full currency refund* to invest in other skills. (This is also necessary because the type of skills you have the most active of determines some behaviour and finisher of the Devil Trigger analogue, but that's a different topic) I think this is pretty fantastic, and there's a basis for putting up some types of "builds". As a game Soulstice may make things more complicated than they arguably need to be for some, but it still tries to do interesting things with them. And on this skill front, there's some welcome options. SOULSTICE ASIDE In the Lucifer video, i believe you played some music from the Spark the Electric Jester games. I don't know if you've actually played them, but 3 especially seems like it'd be up your alley for trying to explore how it goes about combat. Especially with how Sonic-inspired it is. Tehsnakerer made a really awesome in-depth review series on all three games, with a compilation of all three being released recently. Definitely recommend checking it out. Big comment here, as it happens quite often, but if you took the time to read this through: thank you for doing so, as well as making this video, and wish you a good rest of your day as well as fun on future projects!

The flipkick launcher in Darksiders 2 would get in the way of platforming a bit iirc, since Death won't start wallclimbing/running out of it. But generally that skill doesn't really create much of an issue, yeah. Also that was quick, damn. You on that content grind rn

Subbed, quality commentary, u dont care its niche, and ur passionate. No clickbait yada yada? What other games are you planning on discussing topics on? Also the vegeta losing streak joke was hilarious

My favorite combo is a spin dash into a jump which bounces Sonic onto their head reminiscent of Adventure, once you get cyclone it locks you out of drop dashing though cause it always leads into an animation so I can never get more than 3 skill tree abilities on a fun playthrough.😢

Nice video usually there’s not a lot of people talk about the combat system in sonic frontiers. As for me yeah it’s a mess which I don’t mind mostly I just wish it has flow and control with the character techniques it doesn’t have to go all dmc style but something unique that gives the player an offense or defense strategy to deal a boss or group of enemies. And I hope for the next sonic game it improves that.

Finally, I thought I was the only one who felt that the combat had issues, glad to know I was wrong

I'm so glad you actually addressed briefly how good Darksiders 2 was! Great review man! Edit: I have to say, your reviews are getting better and better while still maintaining the humor! I love it! Keep them coming!

Does anyone else have a problem where pressing A or Y (x box) would sometimes trigger the cyclone kick instead of their respective attacks?

Sega saw dmc combos and thought we can do that, so they made the moves as flashy as possible without considering how anything should actually be implemented

the parry being the way it is really disappointed me, alot. this video was such a refreshing watch and really made me look at sonic frontiers differently, while not negatively effecting my joy with the game. well done man

If I were to suggest some changes to the skill set and try to make it more of my own, I would make some of these changes. Certain attacks have to be prefaced by one attack, and then having a certain effect. For example, the long range has to be prefaced by Sonic Boom and then pressing a button, which leads to a certain result, or having the basic hit combo have certain attacks associated with it, varying in the way to activate them: -4 Basic combo > X + Direction on L stick = Regular directional combo -Any time during the Basic combo > B + Down = Stomp (Damage) -4 Basic combo > B + Up = Loop Kick (Knockback/Break Defence from shielded enemies) -2 Basic Combo > Hold A = Tornado Kick (Send a group of enemies airborne, basically a group launch) -4 Basic Combo > A + Full spin with the Analog stick = Spin Slash (Stun a single enemy in place) -(Airborne) 2 Basic Combo (just 2 presses of the X button) + Left Trigger = Sonic Boom (A quick, weak but constant flurry of attacks which would allow you to keep the enemies airborne. However the airtime you would get from it would be short, to prevent the player from Spamming it. It would serve the same purpose as Dante's Ebony and Ivory, being weak attacks that would serve to keep the enemy high up, and as a gateway for more powerful moves) -Sonic Boom > B + Full spin with the Analog stick = Homing Shot (Stun and Damage) -Sonic Boom > X = Cross Slash (Damage) -Sonic Boom > A = Sonic jumps off the Sonic Boom just like how he would after jumping off a Trick State, allowing you to do tricks, a dropdash (which make the enemies stay airbone a bit longer) or charge a spindash (runs them over, causing medium damage) -Any time during the Basic combo / Sonic Boom + Evade = Wild Rush (I would keep the attack the same, just for the case that an enemy is about to attack you and you don't have a proper chance to parry. This would be sped up and would target the back of the enemy, interrupting their attack, but it won't cause that much damage, causing them too loose their footing) The Parry I would reduce depending on the difficulty setting, maybe set to 5 seconds on the hard setting and make it instant in Extreme. Phantom Rush: I would turn in into something that you activate (akin to the Devil Trigger) but doesn't last as long as the original one, making every combo faster in execution and deal more damage, but deplete fast, but not a resource that the player should feel like they would waste by using it sparingly (something that you can recover quickly, but depletes even quicker) The Cyloop can stay the same, being abled to be triggered at any point during the Basic Combo by pressing Y, not only breaking the Defence, but Stunning the enemy if they're defenceless. For the stun mechanic: apparently the Titans had a mechanic which made them enter a stun state if Sonic dealt them enough damage, making Giganto and Supreme fall to their knees, allowing you to hit them. If we were to apply this to regular enemies, it would make it so there's a certain threshold which causes the enemies to enter a stun state, which would allow the player to input the Grand Slam. In this version, it can be achieved by (For example): Parry > Spin Slash / Homing Shot Tornado Kick (Make the enemies be Airborne in any way) > Stomp Loop Kick > Spindash / DropDash Cyloop > Another Cyloop / Any attack that However, the Grand Slam can only do a certain amount of damage, but when an enemy is stunned, you can chain other attacks to maximize DPS while the stun is active by keeping them airborne and then finish them off with a Grand Slam! (if you're skillful enough that is) A lot of this of course would need a lot of rebalancing with the enemies and the guardians, but I think this comment is already far too long. I would make it so that there's more enemy variety (have guys who attack out front, guy who shoot from behind whose attacks can be parried, flying enemies that can't be stunned by throwing them too the ground), and that they don't restrict you to one single move (looking at you, Soldiers who cower onto a cube which can only be disabled by using the Cyloop), but, as you have pointed out, Frontiers does show potential, it's just a case of exploiting it (just look at mods like Combat DX or Hedgehog May Cry. Jeez, modders are having a field day)

I liked the combat but I can. See how people wouldn't. It's more speed and flash than anything.

I just wanted to comment on that bit where you said that to make the game more challenging you have to stay on lvl 1. I beat the game on my first playthru as level 1 sonic in the hardest difficulty on release, no upgrades whatsoever of any kind in any way, and I still found myself breezing thru every single encounter, the game never became hard to a point where I actually considered upgrading anything, nor it actually gave me a challenge in any way as I beat it under 15 hours (way under the promised 20), so... It is way worse than it looks, it really is Also I wanted to mention something that is not in the video, this is the only "DMC Style" game that doesn't allows me to lock and switch targets at will, it will do it for me as it pleases, so sometimes it will switch which enemy you are attacking without any way of taking it back, In bayonetta, DMC and MGRising you can switch targets using the TAB key on PC, and you can lock on or un-lock from enemies at your own leisure because some attacks are meant to be crowd control attacks that you perform when surrounded by enemies, and that is way easier to do if you have free reign over the camera, while other, much more powerful attacks, require you to know where the enemy is at all times so you can continue your streak, on which case having the camera track the enemy as you move around makes it a lot easier, but again, Midtiers has nothing of that, so you are left with the worst of both worlds, a lock-on target system that snaps between targets as the game sees fit, sometimes messing up your combo because you are now attacking a different enemy that what you were and a free movement camera that doesn't snaps or tracks a single enemy so I can never actually know where the enemy is.

You've summed up perfectly the problems I have with the Sonic Frontiers combat. As for the problem with Sonic's legacy moves, we'd need to be able to manually switch between exploration mode (for basic moves) and combat mode (for special attacks), because, I don't know if you've noticed, but Sonic puts himself in a special position when he encounters enemies, which means he's in combat mode, and we'd need to be able to change that manually, because in addition to preventing us from using Sonic's legacy moves, it also prevents us from : Saving and loading a game, starting a Cyberspace level, interacting with certain puzzles, and interacting with the characters, and that annoys me a lot ! As for the attacks themselves, I'm quite disappointed that every attack does the same thing : just do damage, with no difference between them other than their animations. I'm not asking to add new attacks, just to improve the ones already present. For example, it would be interesting if "Wild Rush" could have an electrical effect that could paralyze enemies for a short time, or if "Homing Shot", the attack with the energy balls, could make an explosion on impact, doing great damage to the enemy but also to surrounding enemies, justifying the fact that its animation is long and can't be cancelled. For me, there's no need for a big skill tree, just a dozen attacks and abilities is more than enough, just that they're well distinct from each other, and unfortunately, that's not the case, and I'm afraid the third update won't fix that. And as for difficulty… Yeah, it's very easy, and once you've beaten an enemy, doing it again quickly becomes... repetitive and boring. Even in extreme, some guardians have such a low life bar that it's very easy to beat them in their first phase, and this is partly due to the fact that most attacks can slow down time... and I find that really ridiculous. If it were only one attack, why not, it would add differences between each attack in the skill tree, but here... I don't really understand this choice, except to make the game ridiculously easy. The parry can already slow down the time for each countered attack, so I don't see the point of putting it on almost all of Sonic's special attacks. Oh, and the parry would have to be held for only a second (or less) before it let go on its own, forcing the player to have timing, which would be great. So something I'd find interesting to do to increase the game's difficulty, without drastically changing the enemies' behavior, would be for each special attack to use the stamina bar, which is only used for the turbo, to avoid the player spamming the most powerful attacks every time, and the use of the stamina bar varying for each special attack. And the higher the difficulty, the greater the resistance and speed of the enemies... especially the speed, which for me, will make the battles much more nervous, without making them too long for nothing. And it's clearly not a difficulty to increase enemy speed, because in Knuckles' first quest with the Kocos, every time a Koco is picked up, enemy speed (in the quest it's multiple Towers) is increased, with a counter that can multiply speed up to a maximum of 4. Of course, enemies such as Strider, Tank or even Squid, who use special scripts, couldn't just have their speed increased like that, they'd have to have their projectiles and attacks increased specifically, and not their move. ... anyway, I think my comment is long enough, I'd better stop. 😅 I could add more, but I think that's enough, maybe I'll go into more depth later.

I personally just feel bamboozled with the game. The Honey Moon phase lasted like 3 hrs & then a couple days later I discover Spark Jester 3. Never heard of this game let alone the other Spark games, tried it out & just yelled out “Sega you ain’t got any more excuses” Like I’m just growing more & more pessimistic for whatever Sega is doing with Sonic but I don’t wanna be like that.

Sonic Frontiers is the only game I found the combat to have LESS depth the more you master it. At the start new moves add a bit of discovery and enemies have some basic counters like bubble enemy being very immune to normal attacks. However, after figuring it out, it's a cheesefest. Bubbles and enemies that pull out shield cans are best to be destroyed from range by holding a single button and bosses are reduced to spamming time stopping abilities so they get killed in one cycle. It got so boring after a while and started feeling like traditional homing attack spam with extra waiting.

Tbh the only way to fix it is to make it the button press at the same time like RT+A or RT+B instead of RT then A.

I like the combat in frontiers my issue with it is that it replaces some other moves and also something that pisses me off in sonic frontiers is that when you're grinding on rails if you go too fast springs just don't work sometimes there are boosters and you can't use the spring at all

Not to toot my own horn here but I just remembered my old Sonic fangame I worked on years ago that also had a combat system and I recalled that I had a similar issue where the combat moves cluttered up the control scheme while making it more annoying to do the platforming actions. My solution funnily enough was to give Sonic style swapping of sorts that allowed you to swap between the platforming abilities and combat abilities. In the case of my old project, not only was it taking inspiration from DMC but it was also 2D that made it much easier to implement things. In Frontiers though, a style swapping system wouldn't solve all the problem entirely but perhaps could mitigate some of the weirdness with combat abilities triggering during platforming sections. Especially when certain abilities have unusual button combinations to do the attack.

I remember u tweeting about this and I could not help but agree.

so basically Sonic Frontiers is an input overlap hell

People who don’t play DMC call it a button masher but frontiers is straight up a button masher as stupid and mind numbing as the werehog it atleast tried

Having played with mods to make combat more challenging, I think there's a foundation for a good system there, but the problem is they lost confidence in the combat and completely pivoted away from it during development. Case in point: Playtesters found it difficult, so they buffed Sonic to oblivion, and then instead of designing enemies that use the combat system like Ninja they designed more minigames like chasing and rail grinding and QTEs. If the attack commands made sense and more enemies were designed like the Ninja series, where they counter your attacks and prompt you to react, we could have amazing combat. And since people keep mentioning Spark 3, that's another game that has the foundation of a good combat system but the enemy designs don't work with it. Regular enemies aren't interesting and very few bosses actually use it.

This is a fantastic video being both informative and funny. Imma sub

Barely halfway in the game and all i'm hearing is: "You can't do non combat options in combat." Like, yeah, they're not fucking combat options.

Could you review spark 3's combat? I love that game, and I love the combat, but it definitely is the weak point of the character's mechanics. I've tried really hard to make some gold out of it (some of it seen on my yt channel) and I'd love to hear some criticism that can potentially make it better for the next game

I personally think sonic frontier's combat is simple yet effective but my problem comes from the enemies you meet at the second island and not the guardians I'm talking about. I'm talking about the normal enemies As they are one of the few enemy types I hate, for context, whenever you attack these enemies they suddenly pull up a shield and my problem comes up, I'm not a fan of pace breaking enemies, look at the blitz from DMC 4 or the color coated enemies from DmC, as they not only make the combat system stop, but immediately punish me for being fast and offensive, and sure, you can parry [which i don't mind the parry, this is the first sonic game with combat i like for normal sonic, so i don't mind it being easy to use currently] or Cyloop, but the cyloop works on multiple yet one enemy is focused, and man, i don't like it. but other than that Frontiers combat is fun, simple, and impactful, do i still want it to be closer to DMC or Bayonetta? Yes, but i don't mind this combat system and i do hope it improves as a whole, maybe take a page from spark 3 in future and maybe i'll be playing more, until then, i'll wait for that third update

Imho, the combat system highlights what's wrong with this game in general: Too many disconnected mechanics on offer, too little that's actually required. Outside of gimmick encounters, there's nothing that can't be done by mashing a single button over and over. It's the first sonic game i had to drop because it was found it to be unbearably bad. I 100% the first island and couldn't continue.

Now im interested to try Sonic frontiers with only the story skills,cyloop,stomp,quick cyloop, phantom rush,grand slam, ah and with level 100 strenght but not in vanilla game, obviously on hedgehog may cry mod,did you think it will give me a better experience?

14:40 attack boosts completely trivializing combat, sounds like the exact same problem another Sega action game franchise has.... 🤔

I'm not sure I really agree with most of these critiques. If you have auto combo off, most people won't find the combat controls so finicky. I also didn't find the game's skill tree to be bad, just not really a "tree". I memorized the controls for each attack as soon as I unlocked them, so I don't really accidentally input the wrong thing or make any unintentional moves when I'm playing (except every now and then an accidental cross-slash when trying to air boost). I really did feel like the main problem with the combat is that the moves don't really synergize well with each other, they don't build off each other in a way that encoursges specific combos that you'll want to reuse, except maybe ending with stomp so it goes by quicker. Don't get me wrong, I have issues with the game too, I think they're just different ones than yours.

how you getting the camera to not lock in the specual moves

If you don't want to do the moves you should try to turn the camera away the enemies I know that sucks but it usually works for me

I guess you aren't in the additional characters DLC?

What's the game at 5:00?

11:36 I'm gonna be honest. I think that is how people think. Like sure as an enthusiast you may feel unimpressed after replay's. But I watched a loooot of different people stream frontiers on the high of the bosses. I genuinely think sega was afraid of being unappealing or being "too difficult" and they walked things back... And sadly given those streams I've watched.. It was probably the right choice... There's so many times where you just watch someone and wonder what their thought process is... I saw so many fail the QTE for the wyvern fight. I mean fuck people didn't even know about parry, EVEN DURING THE FIGHT AND WERE LIKE "chat what am I suppose to be doing again?" even though there was a prompt TELLING THEM TO PARRY THE MISSILES BEFORE THE FIGHT STARTED. I mean hell you had people EAT THE HUGE FUCK OFF END LAZER. There's a big red light aiming down the center, Large siren noises, ample time to move out of the way... And people sat there and were somehow confused about the attack? Like how many que's did they just drop!? I mean hell I've seen people ignore combo's entirely and just spend all 400 rings just *slowly* punching down giganto with basic moves and it left me wishing they made the basic's do more damage or something because my lord basics are useless despite being so cool. They built the game they way they did because people play exactly as you just said. And why would they put that time and effort for combo's after the werehog? You said so yourself in the werehog video. You didn't bother learning the movesets itself. you initially wrote it off and hated on the werehog like myself everyone else did. So is it any real mystery why they feel the need to walk things back and avoid going all in on something they aren't sure of? Frontiers was a pretty big tipping point and I can understand why they held back as much as they did and avoided delving into any one aspect. Hopefully this will encourage them to polish things up and innovate like they have with spindash and momentum. They experimented but also tried to play it safe with frontiers. And I believe it payed out in the end. Would I love some innovation and polishing if they can genuinely make another good open zone game? of course... Whether they can make something deep but also intuitive for the average joe is another matter though.

Oh Sonic Team is fixing the parry time so it doesn't last forever in the next update

Really? Yeah I agree but u still can do some cool stuff like fake powder do on twitter

1 HOUR LATE SQUAD WHERE YOU AT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Its actually pretty good

It's a good combat formula, but the skills have no limitations/delays and can be spammed + the parry is still too op.

Honestly, I don't think having the combat work like dmc or whatever is a good solution. I think the physics of combat should work more similar to the physics of Sonic Battle. That includes bouncing enemies on a wall, bouncing them on the ground and even get bounced on a wall and ground. Heck, just give sonic his moveset in Battle. What's the point of doing the loop kick if enemies don't get launched by the impact of that move? Do moves like sonic boom and cross slash carry opponents due to the knockback like what sonic wave does? Moveset and physics in frontiers suck!

15:05 fin.

I feel like if they used the combat from Sonic Battle, the game would have better combat but then again, the game had a lot of options for combat which would be hard to do for a Sonic game because SEGA is lazy-

The game may be a mess, but its my favorite mess.

Yeah bro i didnt really like the combat that much Either. I be trying to fight the enemies how i want but the game says "N O" and makes me do a random ass move that i wasn't even trying to do. It's annoying 😒

Eh... I liked it.

I literally finished sonic frontiers yesterday and i didn't have a problem with this at all. That just means people are just clicking too many buttons. Also why would not want to do an attack when ur close to a emeny like that don't make sense. But about the cutscenes their sould be option to get rid of thoughs, seriously.

gang gang

its funny bc it wouldn't have been hard for them to have their cake and eat it too games aren't new to difficulty settings just make an auto-combo setting that noobs can turn on and let the pros have fun with more options that that can control by turning auto-combo off

IMO the combat is perfect.

Why complain about frontiers combat when the rest of sonic games combat are just either jump on the enemy or press homing attack, no combos just spam homing attack. This is so stupid, frontiers combat is such a step forward for sonic, perfect no, fun and promising yes

If SEGA just stuck to something, *anything*, for more than a single game, we might get more than just a decent game out of it

what is interesting is that Kishimoto said that in the development stage the Combat was harder and he even said "Bayonetta and DMC like", it would be interesting to see how it was at the time

They're almost on to something with the enemies where you need to do movement stuff to break through defences but there's not enough of that

I agree with this point at 11:10 and it really is the main reason what Sonic Team went with the direction they went with I think Kishimoto even mentioned that originally they were gonna go with DMC or Bayonetta as a base for the combat but they scrapped it because it "Didn't feel like Sonic." and I would've loved to see a world or timeline where they did use those games as an idea or base for combat than whatever they stuck with in the final release.

While I really like Frontiers, I certainly agree that a lot of the Combat can be very frustrating... I really feel like it's an issue of overdoing it... The base moveset has so much depth, that could be explored, but a lot of the moves unlocked later on just obscure that identity... That, coupled with a lack of enemies that really challenge that moveset, lead to a very underwhelming experience with the Combat... Which is a bad thing in a game in which you can run away from most combat to begin with. (The enemies which turn into those cylinders you have to cyloop are also frustrating, mainly because the Homing attack never seems to focus on them afterwards, so you waste time hitting another enemy turning into a cylinder...)

I think a game Sonic Team should take notes on is Cross Code. In that game, you have combat arts that function similar to Sonic's moves, but you activate them by pressing a designated button alongside a certain action to perform a specific type of combat art (dashing, melee, ranged, or guard)

I really like some of the ideas Frontiers introduced, but the game as a whole doesn't live up to what it could be. If we ever get a sequel with tighter better thought out combat and without the "Sega hired this man" looking environments, I'd be all over that.

For one person who has played the game, I will say the the combat can be a tad clunky sometimes, but then again we do have to realize that this is a massive step up from every sonic game before it, and provides something new and vastly different from the homing attack we are used to. This feels more experimental since this is also sonics first open world and steps away from the formula we know as well.

Literally map all special attacks to macros using L1 or R1 held down and the face buttons at the same time and all control between Sonic's base moveset and new moves are restored...

"It pisses me off" is such a fucking adept way to put it. You described my frustration with this system like, word for word. Good work, man.

At least I can ignore the bad abilities by not buying them along with not upgrading sonic attack but I think the biggest issue imo is less sonic simple moveset and more like there should be more unique enemy spawns cause frontiers actually has a lot of unique weak enemy spawns they could mix and match I feel like the most reason they only stuck with solider enemies cause it was the easiest to spawn in the overworld compared to having multiple different enemy types and they probably didn’t wanna disrupt the pacing of the player who just wants to explore and run around This probably won’t fix it but they should’ve put a legit bloody palace mode along with nerfing the parry entirely

Really good discussion piece about Frontier's combat, and I agree on all points. I really hope these aren't concepts that Sonic Team will just abandon altogether, as they typically tend to do, because I see the potential behind all this. As someone else here said, it feels like Frontiers was designed for platform first and combat second, and while Sonic is definitely more about platforming, I still think there's legroom for a good Sonic beat 'em up.

Darksiders 2 being mentioned makes this video extra based

I think an easy fix for the next game would be to map the move to new buttons or have the options to remap your moves yourself and fix the parry to be timed based. And make enemies harder This is how I would remap the buttons ( for Nintendo switch but is the same for all other consoles and their corresponding buttons For Nintendo Switch B jump Homing attack double press B Spin dash Left stick down then B ( will work just like in base frontiers just change Zl to B) Drop dash triple tap B Cross slash Press L stick in + B ( cross slash has more range and projectiles but less damage ) Spin slash (rotate left stick+ B) Recovery smash Press in B(when prompted ( sonic does a 8 hit combo cutscene can be Disabled in the options menu ) I wanted to do something to differentiate grand slam and recovery smash since there the same move but I ran out of ideas ) Zr Boost( while in combat instead of boost refilling over time boost replenishes when hitting enemies and combining them. while boost damages enemies like spin dash but doesn’t instantly kill them phantom rush is active boost is faster and does more damage ( does not damage titans /boost is unlimited for super sonic ) sonic boom Zl ( instead of mutiple small Shockwave there are instead 2 huge shockwaves that have shorter range and more damage) Tricks Left stick Parry (is timed now sonic doesn’t float in air ) L+R Quick step Left L Dodge left Flick L stick twice Quick step Right R Dodge right Flick R stick twice Grand slam Press in R stick (when prompted) Stomp A Loop kick (rotate left stick+ A) Cyloop X Quick cyloop (X when in combo ) Bounce jump (not in the game would replace auto combos (auto combos would still be a feature just moved to an option setting ) Y Wild rush ( wild rush knocks enemies away like spin dash ) tap Y Cyclone kick hold Y Homing shot (input Y like a homing attack ( double tap Y )when the homing reticle appears. can be canceled by dodging )

With all the automated moves Frontiers has, I kind of wonder if it was meant to be an rpg, a lot of the moves sound like attacks straight out of an RPG as well, I mean come on “homing shot”? “Grand Slam”? “Sonic Boom”? Frontiers Director even confirmed that he took helm of the project around 1-2 years before release, they might’ve recycled those moves from the original game and put them in frontiers.

Sonic frontiers combat was clearly reduced from any depth, the developers talked about how it was a hack-slash before but people find it too hard so they changed it, also the parry was also nerfed because people found it too hard too, the parry minigame in the game clearly proves this, but yeah, the obvious answer to all these problem existing (cutscenes attacks) it's because this game was not easy enough for children.

4:55 yooo it's your underrated love, Assault Spy! Immediately followed by Hi-Fi Rush and one of *my* favourites, Darksiders 2! Awesome that you know of it! I suppose DS2 is one of the most applicable Character Action games when it comes to trying to mix that very style of combat with RPG mechanics. To my awareness, it's a game that's quite easily broken (especially thanks to its Possessed Weapon system), but still a lot of fun to play around with. I'm hoping to replay it sometime soon with deliberately underleveled gear, to try and force myself to make the most out of the different moves and weapons. In any case, awesome to see you showcase that cool game :) And also: been really liking this series as a whole so far! Edit: Fwoly huck, never even realized you can cancel a jump attack in DS2 like that with Strife's gun. I've not really tried styling a lot, but-- this knowledge seems useful for when i get back to it! Just like how that gun jump cancel in DS2 may not have been deliberately intended by the devs, you talking about that trick might not have been the intended info you wished to share in this video. But it's nevertheless very much appreciated.

I feel like the werehog has a better combat system FOR a hack'n slash game, but Sonic Frontiers has better combat FOR a fast-paced platform game. I think Sonic Frontiers combat works exactly because it's shallow, because it doesn't get in the way of the movement, that is the focus of the gameplay. The werehog combat has a terrible pacing and he was very clumsy to control. I agree with you that Frontiers combat has some balancing issues and the pairing is totally broken, but it's just more fun to play. Even if the werehog is competent gameplay, it's too different from what a Sonic game fundamentally is. I feel like improving upon Frontiers' combat is the way to go

This games combat is so simple it’s just honestly mind numbing

i don't want ot make fan boy wars on sonic, but if you are fan of sonic, i highly recommend to check on freedom planet 2, with 4 main campain , 4 different main characters and gameplay, specially if looking forward to a 2D sonic game

When I heard "baby booty butt cheeks" I died of laughter, nother guy I used to watch said that a lot when he was describing how garbage something in a game felt. Shame how often skill trees are so badly implemented in games. Honestly feels like something game designers often recklessly slap in as a checklist thing instead of putting more thought into it.

I was waiting for this and its all facts. I really want them to take this and rework it into something that works and doesn't cause a lot of the issues present. Fun fact: Before update 2 added the spindash, if you wanted to drop dash an enemy, you'd have to position the camera side ways to sonic, launch em high enough, dodge away from them until they were off camera, and then input the drop dash, amd if your lucky you'll get your input, but if not, SPINSLASH BABY! WOOOOO! Not to mention you also would have to line that shit up just for the drop dash to hit. I admire the ambition for them to try this and appreciate some of the good thats there, but if they're gonna do this again, imma need them to pull a FFXVI and hire the dmc battle director, or stay in the kitchen until they clean that shit up.

I fully understand what you mean. To me personally I don't mind it but I would love if the moveset had different button layouts and not sharing a pre existing slot

DMC fans when you don't need to read a whole bible of combos to play a game: 😭😭😭😡😡😡

My problem with this game is the shitiest camera I've ever seen, especially when view close and far the combot loses focus as it locks off the enemy...ALOT

My biggest problem with the combat is that overall it's too easy. The infinite parry window and every special move dealing insane damage and being easily spamable. I also dislike the mapping of these moves, so many times I've tried to boost then jump only to snap to an enemy and do a move. The moves look cool, and utilizing them in Super Sonic fights feels awesome but in normal gameplay it can be cumbersome, and it clashes with traversal and control.

the worst part of the combat is that not only has sega made a better combat system with pso2 and ngs, but frontiers also straight up uses animations from ngs, or at least very similar animations

My biggest complaint is that there's no real sense of flow to the combat. Punching just brings all your speed to a dead halt.

I'm tired of people saying "Turn off auto combo" because not only do I and others have it off, the button inputs are in the way of other basic attacks. If you try to do air dash into homing attack you instead get that animation where Sonic throws out that multi ball attack instead

Well, I hear director Kishimoto is looking to update the combat and the entire final island in the final story update and he's taking cues from Spark the Electric Jester 3. Sooo... see ya back in 3 months, I guess?

Amazing how DLC3 showed us that the parry is so broken that when taking it away for perfect parrying and enemy telegraphs the game combat gets far WORSE. They needed a better combat designer on staff.

I love when people claim that the Frontiers parry lasts forever, because it really shows how ridiculous and excessive 15 seconds is when some people literally don't even realise that it's not actually forever.