Sonic Frontiers: The C̷̛̺O̵̽͋R̵͛̐R̷̓̿U̷͕͠P̶͒̐T̴̅ION of Storytelling 

UPDATE: Well, that ending didn't age well. I've changed my mind. "The Sonic Forces We Never Had" is available to read on Google Drive right now! My Patreon is also cancelled as I shift gears in life. Thank you very much. drive.google.com/drive/folders/15WkUXQLKJcxffGFfZ4-P5cgDOwSY85fD?usp=sharing

To me, only one of the references worked: “What is your end goal?” “It varies, sometimes it’s a spinning sign, sometimes it’s a big ol’ ring.” That was genuinely funny.

Jeb sounds like a disappointed teacher who has to deliver bad grade news to students, who thought they did well.

You calling it “The Brand Era” is incredibly on point, considering Sega-Sammy admitted they see Sonic as a mascot more than a video game franchise

The Dreams Of Na-Nabsolution was peak

If they made The End a bigger presence in the games story, with it being the personification of death, it could've helped dig into Sonics character so much more. Imagine a story where Sonic has to acknowledge that at one point he will have to stop running, that at one point the End is inevitable and him being told that his world will suffer the same fate as the Ancients. Suddenly a higher power is justified as Sonic has to push past his limits to fight a force of nature. Even a Black Knight reference could be made in a sombre moment where Sonic is like "so this is how Merlina felt". Each flashback could serve as a way to hammer the point home and shake Sonic's resolve more. Instead of Sonic being corrupted on the outside, we could see him be corrupted in his conviction, only for his friends to snap him out of it in the end with some genuine dialogue instead of a stupid hand holding ring. This is just one more idea. The thing I hate most about Sonic Frontiers story is that there is no overall message or point to the story being told.

'Hey, Peter! Remember the time you were transported to the medieval period & fought King Arthur?' 'This is worse than that one time I had to use a flying carpet & turned purple.

In some ways, Sonic and Mario traded places in terms of what they stood for in the 90’s to current. Now Mario is looking to break through his old safe space in new ways while Sonic is content in being a brand that guarantees an appeal for the sake of online entertainment. Gone of the days of the company wanting to push the IP past its limits in wanting to be something worth experiencing beyond a fundamental level. Now old fans seem only content of celebrating the past because that’s the only salvation they have that isn’t scrutinized by Sega’s corporate touch…yet. I want to love the current version of Sonic and his characters, but…it’s just not for me. And it’s not fair to talk down on others who enjoy them now because this is all they remember in current years. However, there’s something to be said when you neglect to take proper care of your creation for nearly 3 decades. Sonic is the embodiment of mismanaged potential that has no excuse to be; he was meant to be something greater from how he was created to be.

Don’t worry you’re not crazy, most of us are just numb to this kind of thing at this point

It's actually unfair how much your writing has improved.

I really loved the Amy appreciation and I very much agree that late 90s/2000s Amy was the best she’s ever been! 🦔💖🔨 Also Amy's story in SA1 is a metaphor for young girls standing up to creepers. Hence how her levels is mainly running away from Zero then later towards the end Amy grows the courage and bravery to take on Zero with her Piko Piko Hammer and you fight him as boss.

the Sonic main cast is like SEGA brand ambassadors or Safe Corporate V-Tubers, not allowed to show flaws, their ugly side, their unpopular opinions, their real emotions. if you imagine SEGA standing behind the camera and filming these cutscenes, like yeah it sure looks like sonic doesnt wanna piss off the executives staring him down while he's recording a take.

The game *insists* upon itself.

Amy is inspired by the death of two ancient aliens to go to japan and teach English and mission for christianity

The animation in some of these cutscenes are KILLING me 😭 Like why does everyone move so linearly 🤖🤖`🤖🤖 What makes it even more ironic is that the people commenting below this are talking about how GOOD other sonic game's animation were 😂

Dude, you could build a house with all the nails you’re hitting on the head.

The Silver version of the Sage montage LMAO

1:02:40 Dude this part SERIOUSLY resonates with me, I swear, EVERY time a somewhat decent or barely decent Sonic game comes out, or like, the bare minimum of a game. The reviews and consensus is always “ITS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION “ it’s never SOLID or actually just good, it’s always like, two steps forward (if that) and one step back, it’s like the team doesn’t know what they are doing at all, and they just spread themselves thin instead of having a strong idea. Like you said, no commitment. Like almost every Mario title is very strong, but Sonic always has a ton of issues. I still really like Unleashed though.

“Aw yeah! I found a chaos emerald! This reminds me of Radient Emerald from Sonic R ™.

22:10 I think you’d like the Japanese version of this scene a lot better In that version, Amy reflects on her actions towards Sonic and how “just loving someone isn’t enough”; she says she wants to take a step back and figure herself out. It’s essentially her saying she wants to stop thinking about the immediate future; she wants to consider what would actually happen if her and sonic did develop a relationship and how she would have to mature to be proper to him.

When sonic said it’s “frontiering time” it made me cry out of pure joy

Brand era is pretty fitting of 2010s and 2020s Sonic tbh. Neither decade really stands for anything as a whole or has much interesting to add to the series beyond a few exceptions. Sonic exists because people expect him to keep running forever. But nobody in charge really knows what they're doing or how to execute their ideas well. So the series is just left to stagnate and coast off the name recognition and community passion. Every once in a while we get something like Mania or the Knuckles prologue that shows us glimpses of a bright future. But it never lasts when everyone is too busy pushing out things with Sonic's name on it to slow down. Frontiers is the prime example. It was promised to be a bold, new direction and ended up using a lot of the same tropes and ideas as most of the 3D games do. Feels less like a crazy experiment as much as a calculated risk to get the success of games like BOTW. Don't mean to be a doomer, but it's hard to not be cynical when it feels like Sonic is slowly being turned into a guinea pig for printing dollar signs and nothing more. And the same hostile community who swear they care about this series continue to encourage it. I think it's time for Sonic Team to ask some themselves really hard hitting questions about how the series and figure out what that next best step is. What does Sonic as a vision represent? How has that vision been represented over 30 years? And in what ways should we represent that vision going forward? Because I don't think these are questions that have been asked in a long time. I'm willing to give Kishimoto one last chance in whatever his next project will be, if only because I appreciate his transparency on twitter when accepting feedback. But I'm not holding my breath for it to blow me away.

What’s crazy is the Silver and Amy montage wouldn’t have been that bad since those minor ass characters had more on screen development and reasons to be bonded than Sage and Eggman lmao

I think one easy way to tell of a story sucks, is to ask yourself if you would enjoy the characters and story, if the game was unknown and completely new.

The thing with Amy many fail to mention This is a freaking japanese series, she's the ultimate Genki Girl That bold and energetic girl who ends up in the same situation as the guy she likes and takes the chance

I feel like "We'll be better next time" should've just been this games marketing tagline cause the game, the fans and the developers alike really seem to want you to believe that despite hearing that same thing multiple times throughout the last decade. I feel like we've grown so used to this series trying to chase past glory at this point that literally getting back to the beginning is seen as an improvement which is kind of sad.

44:05 Eggman’s line here makes me think that they were trying to make Eggman and Sonic like Batman and the Joker, where they can’t live without the other thwarting their plans or creating chaos

I’m not sure if i’m the only one who notices this, but does anyone else feel like when Ian Flynn writes for a character they end up sounding like him? Like, i’ll read/hear something he wrote coming from a characters mouth and i’ll be like “this sounds like something he’d say himself on his podcast”. Prime example of this is Sonic describing his ideology to Surge in the IDW comics. It sounds like Flynn answering a question from a fan on his podcast. A lot of the writing in this game feels like that too and I think you summed up why/how pretty well with the whole “twitter writing” thing.

This was such a cathartic video to watch. I remember beating the game last year after taking a 6 month break and thinking "...did I miss something? I have no idea what's going on. Who is The End? Did we build up to this? Did I forget stuff over the past 6 months or was I just not paying attention?" "What even happens in this game?" That's the thing about this game. You're spot on when you say that this game merely entertains the idea of a story. *This game literally has no plot.* Nothing _happens._ While a "story" has to do with themes and messaging and characters and whatnot, plot is strictly the events that transpire _in_ a story; there is technically a difference. I bring up that difference to point out that while I still retained the gist of the "story" the game attempts to tell, I could not ascertain what the _plot_ was. After watching this video, the plot is literally just "Sonic fights all of the titans and then he climbs the towers to free his friends. But he also frees The End, who he then defeats." You may say "that's not really fair, you can sum up any good story like that if you just focus on the main events", but a story and plot goes hand in hand. If your story doesn't have a plot, then it's just... an amorphous blob of floating ideals, which is exactly what this game's story is. Compare the plot (the literal events that happen) in this game to the plot of games like SA1 and 2, Black Knight, and even Unleashed. It's the type of drawback that I've only really seen in non-linear games like this, which is obviously the point of them, which may again call attention to the "unfairness" of me comparing Frontiers' open-ended plot to that of its more linear predecessors, but... Where Frontiers fails in places that Breath of the Wild succeeds, is that part of BotW's story comes from the unique experience you as the player have as you play the game. The things you discover, the trials you overcome, the Divine Beasts you tame, the wild you breathe; all of that contributes to the player-specific "story" you experience in the game. That's an example of a game with "no plot" like Frontiers that uses that TO IT'S ADVANTAGE. But Frontiers does not. The issue of ludonarrative dissonance that BotW manages to precisely eradicate by virtue of its core gameplay philosophy is everpresent in Frontiers. All they did was patch it with verbal references and name dropping here and there and hope we wouldn't notice. In BotW, everything is carefully thought out to maximize immersion. Almost everything you do in the game fits in line with what someone would think Link would do if you gave them a somewhat vague description of the premise, setting and main objective of the game. But if I did the same with Frontiers' premise and setting, I highly doubt they would think of Sonic traversing floating platforms and disembodied rails that pop in as he gets close to them, which that aren't even explained at all until a throwaway conversation in a DLC campaign that came out a year after the game released. Whatever sense of immersion you have with any given story beat is forcefully wrought from you the moment you reenter gameplay, where as in BotW, it's enhanced. And I'm one of the apparent few who both understands BotW's true vision AND enjoyed basking in it when I played the game, so it's extra noticeable to me just how much Frontiers misses the point on every single aspect of BotW it tried to copy.

55:00 Oh... so THAT'S why my family stopped talking to me after my grandpa died

FINALLY SOMEONE MENTIONS THE BULLSHIT AMY CHARACTER ATTACK OVER THE YEARS! Amy’s dynamic with sonic has *always* been cute, simple, but cute. People tried to make it deeper than what it really was and somehow tried to interpret her as a creep. It’s a side effect of the grass-touching deprivation.

I think it’s best I finally say this now: This game only got as much praise as it did from critics and Sonic fans solely because the last mainline game before it was Forces, expectations were beyond low.

When sonic picked up the sword and says to knight "ah yes my swordsmans technics...I haven't use these since the round table era" it was truly the reference of all time

Sonic's writing will always feel different from its adventure days because its no longer written by Japanese writers. Whole different cultures will produce different vibes in their scripts.

You know, I almost feel emotional about this video. I really despise the way Sonic is nowdays, and for a period I thought I was the only one. It was like if I was invited to a special friend's house and the day I came there i was recieved by a bunch of strangers. Sonic is not Sonic anymore, is a void Shell with a huge arsenal of member berries. For a huge time I thought I was just in a paralel reality, but when i encounter these types of video I realise that im not the only one thinking it. The positive recivement of frontiers was not a natural thing, people are just coping to hard to continue the end less cycle of consumerism. They are no longer fans of sonic but of the Brand. They no longer care about Sonic but for the idea of sonic. As a Sonic fan, its sad to see my favorite franchise, from which i'm a hardcore fan, geting blander and blander with the time. Sonic in this moment is a moving corpse, only surviving by pure determination and unconditional loyality to the brand. Thanks for making this video, you give me the determination to make a video of my own talking about frontiers in the channel im starting. At first I doubt if starting with a rant would be a good idea, but now I really want to talk about this game and its impact in the franchise in my native languaje. Thanks a lot, and sorry for the grammar mistakes, its because im not a english native speaker (and my phone is messing up the things I wrote) (its replacing the text with spanish terms).

"Kishimoments" I clapped

Honestly, I couldn't agree more with the issues of how Amy's written in this game and how Cindy was directed to act, because unlike Knuckles and Tails who had a decent number of moments I liked, there was nothing for Amy that even felt like her, and I was baffled, especially looking back, that there was no mention of her love for Sonic or even how events on Kronos affected how she felt about their current relationship, no discussion between the two about how they may have been immature about how they truly felt. Suffice to say, it wasn't a good first impression when it came to Sonic interacting with his friends, and it's rather telling that he's got more chemistry with Knuckles than who's the closest he has to an official love interest. I appreciate that you've gotten all this off your chest, especially after the fallout of that one offhand tweet, though if I may, I'd probably suggest that this is the last video explicitly tackling a more negative opinion for a while, not because I think you shouldn't dislike anything, lord knows I'm not exactly hopeful about the future of Sonic myself, but because it seems to be all what the channel is known for beyond its fans, completely disregarding the times where you were flat out nice or hopeful, like in the F-Zero video, a lot of the Ratchet videos, or even the Rewriting Sonic video. I know the Forces JebCut video will more than likely be a fun time, but perhaps it's time to tackle Xenoblade and show how much the series means to you, maybe even get some new subscribers in with that. Not to mention, I and many others have been wanting to hear your thoughts about it in-depth ever since you made it clear how much you love Xenoblade. One final note is that watching this video did get me to boot up Frontiers again, not for ragging on it or anything of the sort, but for fun, like trying to experiment with Homing Dashes on 4-3 Rumble Rave as that's one of the small handful of Cyber Space stages I jive with, but also just to dick about in certain areas of the Open Zones, like the submerged ruins in Rhea Island, as I kinda found it therapeutic using the Spin Dash and other moves to get myself on top of structures of all kinds to get some pretty nice views and screenshots, as if I was subconsciously reminding myself that what you say doesn't ever need to affect my opinion, and no doubt, I'll still like Frontiers after all is said and done, even if Final Horizon legitimately pissed me off. Then again, what else is new given that I consider KHIII an A tier game whereas you're the opposite. That's the beauty of having more independent opinions that don't hinge on whether or not your favourite RU-vidr think the same thing. With all that said, it's funny that this video dropped six days after bickuribox12 uploaded his Final Horizon video, and Somecallmejohnny is doing his first Round 2 video in lord knows how long on the Frontiers updates, as if February's spontaneously become the month of Frontiers videos, which I don't really mind as I've been looking forward to each of these projects and I'm fairly confident it's gonna be three for three. Besides, I got Ben 10 Omniverse to watch in the meanwhile, and that's been going great so far. See you whenever Jeb, and btw, the best part of the video was when you said "Frontiering all over the place", glad that meme's persisting.

I disagree, I don't mind Amy being apart of the group since she has always been considered part of the team since Adventure, it was just less conventional. I mean she was always marketed as the player 4 with the trio, Advance games, Shuffle, Riders all did this. Even Sonic X, sure she wasn't like with Knuckles and Tails, but with Amy she got herself tangled up with them through her interaction with Sonic, she'd start out with her usual schtick, then end up entangled on the adventure with them. I also think it gives Amy more to do, I just wish she handn't lost her character in the transition from a non conventional, to conventional member. With Frontiers, I get what they wanted to do with Amy, especially since the Japanese script writes differently and much more in character, the main issue is the whole Multi media they are doing makes this inconsistent. It feels inconsistent because in IDW and TMOSTH, she feels like a mature outlook of her character, yet how's written in the games feels just like her Boom counterpart with less character, essentially just stripping her of any traits that aren't motherly, kind or generic action girl like in Dream Team, with her only defining characteristic in that game being she's girl Sonic. I can't really see Amy being her older version now, since its clear they have written the characters to be much older, but Amy doesn't feel like her own character is the problem, it never feels like her because subdued isn't how I would describe her. I also take issue with stripping away her temper because it implies a female character shouldn't be angry to be likable. But its okay for a male character to do so. I think going the TMOSTH or a nice balance of her SA1 with the idolization being less kiddish would work best. Since I find SA1 Amy to be well done, especially when you consider the context of her story beyond the independence, like ZERO chasing her being like running from and standing up to a creeper, or how older men kept hitting on her. Which is referenced in Heroes, speaking of, last thing I want to note regarding 2000s Amy is that she is overcriticized. Sonic Heroes is the game I feel is the most overcriticized version of Amy because the cutscene for 'Team Sonic vs. Team Rose' has Amy say "Sonic! There's no way ought of marrying me!"... The other thirteen cutscenes involving Amy are pretty good. And that's not including the in-level dialogue that expresses even more of Amy's positive traits. But fuck all of that, because of this one poorly written cutscene, which exists purely to set up a stupid boss fight. People are deeming Heroes' entire portrayal of Amy as "the worst" because of a single bad cutscene that wasn't even written as intended, people read it with the perspective of "abuse" when it was just poor dubbing and not even the intent of the actual scene. It wasn't even supposed to be taken seriously because nobody takes it seriously, even Rose's true motives are corrected within the boss fight itself and its AMY who 's the one who is the most furious about their missing friends and questions Sonic and Co about it. Every time I see a video analysis or video that talks about Amy, they always bring up Heroes like it "ruined her character" or that it started her decline, when I'm always asking myself is she really that bad? When the only thing people too is overreact to ONE scene and take it too literally when it's not the intent of the scene. Like I understanding from the outset that it looks as if Amy is wanting to "force" Sonic into marriage by fighting him, but that isn't even what the scene is saying, especially when it reads a bit differently in Japanese. Where she says "Today I'll get you to marry me" which implies that she wants to win his heart by proving her strength. That's not "assault" or force, even in English the scene is the same, if translated a bit poorly. Granted it does seem odd to transition into a boss fight, but like so did the Adventure games with a couple exceptions. As for Amy being more "extreme about it" like yeah, its more extreme, but I see it as her channeling her confidence compared to the Adventure games into her love for Sonic, Amy was a character who is shown to be extreme with her emotions, so it does make sense to channel her confidence into her love for Sonic, its just that her extreme emotions always pushed Sonic away, even when she tried to prove something. Even later in the story this is directly stated when she tells her team to go after Egg Albatross because "Sonic will be impressed by her". In reality though all the characters had bad reasons for boss fight transitions. Even Sonic and Dark's teams included. It's funny how a scene that's does not mention to be taken seriously has fans take it seriously to insert agendas clearly not even intended for the sake of inserting a particular "Women abusing men" narrative or that "Amy is crazy" when the point is Amy is being extreme with her emotions and just using it as an excuse to start a boss fight. If you ask me, I found Rouge to be more unlikable than Amy in her boss fights, because unlike Amy's which were just for a joke and nobody was taking it seriously, Rouge was absolutely serious when starting a fight with the Chaotix. Rouge was worse than Amy because her reason for starting a fight with Chaotix was more petty and out of character. Rather than just being a joke that was done out of poor context, Rouge is being serious in that she just sees three random guys minding their own business, assumes they are out for her "treasure" then has herself and her teammates JUMP them out of furious paranoia, which is worse because she's accusing people of something they didn't do then forces an unnecessary scuffle. It also doesn't help that afterwards she just assumes they are up to no good. But you never hear anyone call Rouge a paranoid psycho. Sorry for long comments. Amy is my favorite Sonic character and I hate how the fandom places her in weird double standards and treat her character. lol

58:55 When I saw this scene I found it so corny and hoped that no one would walk in on me while I was watching it

This whole game reeks of "we didn't really have that many ideas and this is what our team of all junior devs who are just learning unreal engine could cobble together before we had to get something out the door"

It really feels like Ian's entire goal minute 1 after being hired as lead writer for the game was to write it with under the basis of a question he asked himself: "If I am *never* allowed to write for another Sonic game again, how can I use this one-time opportunity to course-correct the future of the franchise in such a way that future writers cannot go without acknowledging the impact of Sonic Frontiers in the context of the entire series?" If he really did this, then in a sense, I find it admirable to try and acknowledge the past in order to develop a more consistent future instead of just sweeping it under the rug in another typical self-contained Sonic story. I truly believe this is the entire reason there was an astronomical emphasis on the callbacks to previous games and stories, rather than just raw "nostalgia bait" like everyone claims it to be. Sometimes it's a little *too* on-the-nose, but considering how Sonic fans will take the teeniest tiniest details and run with them until they can't anymore in pointless arguments, I really can't blame Ian for doing it. I don't want to speak *for* Ian or anything. But I also think this isn't something Ian can likely speak about since he is still employed by SEGA. Hopefully now it's not something he has to worry about moving forward. Going from writing for a comic to a full-fledged game is not going to be a perfect transition because the process of developing a story and balancing it with gameplay elements is not something comics have to worry about. Either he or SEGA handicapped themselves by making 99% of the story about characters just standing around talking to each other because it was the safest thing to do without blowing through a ton of budget and resources (something we know Frontiers had very minimal of) to make the gameplay more bombastic because of its comic-level narrative. A lot of the issues the series has had revolves around the fan discourse concerning the inconsistencies of character writing. In SEGA's minds, it likely made more sense to "canonize everything" for the sake of producing consistencies while also not trying to pretend the inconsistencies don't exist (like they tried to do for the better half of the 2010s post-Generations).

Sonic's "deep/serious" voice somehow brought the game down alot for me, i don't know how that was even possible... Man....

Man it's draining that the supposed "foundation for the next decade of Sonic" is hellbent on reusing Generations assets and ideas. Riding off the coattails of games that actually got it, both in and out of the series... just like the last half a decade. The are even making a remaster of Generations as we speak (that we have to cross fingers that they don't manage to have it be glitchy for the third time). Yippie

I still find nonsensicval that the majority of Sonic Fanbase hates the line "Green Hill looks more like Sand Hill" in Forces, while at the same time is okay with the many references in Frontiers.

Yeah, honestly I am not sold on Eggman and Sage's chemistry. And no, the Egg Memos don't help me with this problem, it really hit me with a massive amount of whiplash.

I think the problem with SEGA writing Amy's "new" character stems them wanting to forget the old character, rather than embracing it. Both Sonic & Amy's arc has to come down to maturity, cause her goals were to impress Sonic. She was a fan of him in CD. She started chasing him down in the Dreamcast Era, but Sonic doesn't like the idea of settling down. Turning them into rivals in a comedic sense. Now we're at the point of Sonic & Amy lives where they can stop and think how much value thay have in their friendship. (Or more if needed) Amy could now realize it takes time to build up something so long term. So that gives her time to improve on herself, and show that's she's just as a strong/stand out character as the main trio. Most importantly, she's learning not only to embrace her past feelings, but move on from them. Giving her the perfect chance to actually take the time to KNOW Sonic. Rather than continue playing his game of chasing him around, and get rejected. This is the best scenario we can get from the two.... *Problem is, we don't get that.* It's because of the fact SEGA/Writers keep trying to scrub her old character way, this new "I'm so mature now" Amy comes across as forced. Yet at the same time they keep going "HEY HEY Look at this cute and intimate moment between Sonic & Amy, nudge nudge." It doesn't feel genuine. I do like the idea of her trying to find herself, without needing/wanting Sonic. At the same time she shouldn't shy away from the fact that she was obsessively inlove with him. Instead, she should be learning from it, and take approaches to casually join Sonic in his adventures. Or see how they can better their dynamic, now they're at a time where they're passed the chasing game. Basically, let Amy grow into maturity instead of forcing her to be mature.

Part of what made adventure-era Amy so cool was that her arc was about becoming more independent and improving herself so that she could be worthy of Sonic's love- leading to really interesting scenarios like her repeatedly sneaking into and breaking people out of jail, and giving her more believable justification in thrusting herself into dangerous adventures Heroes and Riders and those games that portrayed Amy in a more manic and stalker-y way wasn't disappointing because it was creepy or whatever, it's because it kind of flanderized her into a character with less dimension And that portrayal of her just being a wild hammer-swinging maniac who wants to hunt down Sonic is what laid the groundwork for her now just being a generic Strong Female Character whose only character traits are being nice and using a hammer(and also tarot cards now, because she is also a wizard now I guess)

What I didn't like about the Ancients-Chao connection is that Chao are creatures that can ONLY live in pure and clean waters, far from pollution. What angered Chaos was the destruction of their home. There was an environmental theme about the impact of pollution due to selfish interests (shown by Pachacamac/Eggman) and divine punishment for not taking care of the environment resulting in natural disasters (Chaos). This theme falls apart now because they are aliens that had no connection with the planet. Oh, and fun fact: The Chaos Emeralds are named after Chaos after the disaster, they didn't have a name before... So, another thing they didn't take into account when writing Frontiers because in Frontiers the Ancients started calling them like that.

The origin of the chaos emeralds make no sense in this game. How can the chaos emeralds exist without the Master emerald? They're literally the same thing, furthermore how can they be connected despite coming from two completely different sources of power and location? It just contradicts so much implied lore from the previous games

Jeb, thank you so much for seeing me as worthy to have my name on Patreon be a special shoutout! You have no idea how happy it made me when I was watching the final portions of the video!

I think something made the "SA1 arc retreadings" pretty bad is that in SA1 they actually took the initiative for themselves. Sonic acts on his own and it inspired his friends into reaching their conclusion. In Frontiers they all need Sonic as a mouthpiece to tell them "it's okay bro you haven't regressed as a character 🙃"

the biggest problem with this game is that its staking so much of its promises it made in the story, on the next game being EVEN BETTER. which realistically seems impossible for SEGA and Sonic Team to do. and if Sonic Frontiers 2 doesnt improve on all your criticisms, it will just be another Sonic Forces development cycle of wasted potential and time wasted. people will then look back on Sonic Frontiers 1 as a game that lied to us and spat in our faces for all the false promises it setup for the future of the franchise. i bet the next mainline sonic game will also look like a PS3 game remastered for the PS4, and will still have the outdated obselete Hedgehog Engine 2, and have all the same flaws just expressed in different ways. our only hope is for Fans to do it themselves.

Honestly this video is on point with all of my thoughts, criticisms and annoyances about this games story telling, characterization and what it signifies for this series future. The story constantly talking at you, characters telling you wikipedia articles disguised as dialogue, as well as putting references of itself before proper world building, is a new kind of annoyance. It’s not at all what I want from this series. I’m worried about how they’ll handle Shadow in SonicXShadow Generations. I expect it them to double down on making Shadow the versions the fans see him and not the real Shadow.

This game alone has made people back pedal on their stance on Ian Flynn; saying he shouldn’t write for the games lol Just shows you how bad the story is despite the good character moments

1:06:35 thank you for acknowledging a genuine problem I have with people being so defensive of Ian but attempting to dunk on the previous writers. It just screams bias when both writers had restrictions

There's so much I want to say, but to condense it down, a lot of the problems like "explain-writing" comes from Flynn. I'm being honest. A lot of the explain writing, the tropey depictions of the characters, and talking *at* each other comes from Flynn's part. This isn't to say that the story in Frontiers is perfect as it still has many holes, but the reason why the english script suffers from these issues is because of him. Mischaracterization is riddled in his Archie Sonic comic run and especially his IDW. The primary reason why Flynn was praised is because at the time of dealing with abysmal writing like Lost World and Colors, or straight up floundered opportunities like Forces, Flynn seem to be a "better" writer compared to Graff and Pontac. But what wasn't considered is that anyone could've done better than Pontac and Graff (although I believe it was said recently by Pontac that they barely had a say-so in the script for Sonic). This isn't me just bashing either. Look at Flynn's personal podcast. He consistently over-explains himself over the tiniest questions. IDW is filled to the brim of long wordy dialogue boxes to explain almost every action in the story. Same with exaggerating character traits by telling them to the reader instead of showing us. Despite Flynn being in the series for years, something fans didn't consider is that he spent most of his time writing completely different iterations of the characters in his Archie run, the run he has said to miss repeatedly. The Archie versions of the Sonic characters are vastly different from their game counterparts. Then when the series got discontinued and IDW came onto the scene, Flynn clearly didn't adapt to having to write the game versions of the characters in comic form, which showed very early on in the run. He was never expected to properly learn and write the game counterparts in his Archie run because the Archie line was a different continuity entirely. But again, this was after Forces heavily disappointed fans and fans hooked onto what seemed to be the next best thing (Flynn). The other major problem is, because the quality of Sonic stories have declined when we were getting presented with the 2010s games (Colors, Gens, Lost World, Forces), any hint of "improvement" is seen as a massive step forward. Forces was seen this way with its first trailer as well. This is why even when the presentation for Frontiers is clearly a downgrade from previous Sonic games (animations, frame delays, pop ins, etc) like Unleashed and Gens, because we haven't gotten a game like Unleashed and Gens for a full decade and some change, it's praised as the best thing. It's because Frontiers has no real recent competition in the Sonic 3D area. Games like Forces and Lost World really don't do too much better than Frontiers. Frontiers' competition is a bunch of mediocre games that the fanbase has already ripped into and want nothing to do with. So of course because it *appears* to be better than those games, then it's the greatest thing ever. If Unleashed and Gens were released in 2013 and 2017 respectively, the level of grace given to Frontiers would be revoked immediately. They would KNOW that Frontiers is a downgrade because they have recent examples to compare it to in the Sonic series. It's the same with Pontac/Graff. Pontac/Graff were the most recent examples of Sonic writers in the series. A writer like Shiro Maekawa who wrote for SA2, Heroes, Black Knight and '06 wasn't compared as heavily to Flynn because Maekawa's work has been gone since 2009. This is yet another case of being able to "outshine" (Flynn) already mediocre competition (Pontac/Graff). Again, any "step" in the "right" direction is paraded in the streets of Sonic Twitter as the greatest thing the series has ever done when we already had better quality of writing in the past. Not perfect but still much better than now. Combine that with the longer gaps between 3D Sonic games now being on 4 to 5 years on average, and you have fans that are so ready and raring to treat the newest Sonic game as something fiction has never seen. Because it "improved" since last time.

We need more beatboxing Jeb to introduce new segments in the future

I honestly think that Amy's original nickname "Rosie the rascal" encapsulates what her character was always meant to be so well that it's all you need to hear to get the gist of her energy and charm. Like, frontiers Amy is so devoid of the energy and personality that was so rare to see in female video game characters in the 90s and it makes me so sad. People didn't like her because she was the only sonic female, they liked her because she was genuinely likable. I think sonic writers need to take more out of the OVA character dynamics, because it's so legitimately amazing how perfectly the character interactions are written. They just really understood those characters. The handling of tails especially is just perfect in the ova. He keeps up with sonic and is shown to be just as competent and capable while still having that younger brother type vibe. This is really emphasized in the fight with robo-robotnik.

29:44 To be fair, Sonic likely doesn’t know this is a Titan pilot, or that they even had pilots. All we see is an Ancient in something, not obviously a Titan, and Sonic might have just thought the memory was random chance.

You wouldn't belive how much I wanted to hear your opinion regarding this

The JP side purposely mistranslating the original EN script indeed shows they don't highly prioritize the storytelling or its convergence across different regions, regardless of which version anyone thinks is better or canon. They effectively believe that the dialogue doesn't matter as long as it doesn't breach the character bibles. It's embarrassing to see game localization regress like this, especially after EN SA1's effort to be more faithful to the Japanese canon over two decades ago.

You really hit the nail on the head when it came to the English voice direction because it's something that absolutely bothered me upon playing on launch that I switched to Japanese mid playthrough, the character voices suddenly deepening because it's a more "serious" game sounds really unnatural. I felt like I was crazy when I saw people saying that this was the best they've ever sounded when I'd argue that it's only gotten worse, it sucks because like the Studiopolis actors are not bad like I can think of ten roles that I liked their performances in and none of them would be from Sonic, I gave them a chance I really did but Frontiers specifically has really shown that the direction for this cast will never improve. I would say to really solidify that this is a new era of Sonic I think it's time for another recast, but we really don't need the voices of these characters to become inconsistent AGAIN and get someone new. At the same time though, I don't see SEGA bringing back the VAs from the days of Adventure or Sonic X because they hate fun. I've come to terms that we'll likely never get a good english dub from Sonic ever again but if it bothers me that much, I'll stick to Japanese from now on because Junichi Kanemaru never misses.

I agree with everything you said in this video. Another point I'd like to bring up though is that I think people were always going to heap praise on Frontiers just because it wasn't goofy in tone. Unfortunately I think this fanbase has developed to the point where the primary motivator for any feedback given is fear. Sonic Frontiers (half-heartedly) brings back, darker stories with themes, 3D movement, multiple playable characters and other things people have been begging for, and the fanbase is terrified of losing that. The hyperbolic praise surrounding this game is what I perceive to be a desperate attempt by the fanbase to get them to keep this direction this time, so the franchise doesn't turn into a joke again. Ironically enough, as you pointed out in your video, this game is no less Meta than any of the other games made in the last decade. It's doing the exact same things, in the exact same way, only with 80% less energy to fool you into believing it's mature and deep. All this done in the hopes that "Next time will be the real one" but let's be honest, these games aren't going to get better. Frontiers represents the very best they can do especially with the focus on maintaining a consistent brand. The fans will get more of this current direction sure, but the ennui is bound to settle in.

I think an interesting way to rewrite Sage's character would be to have her think of Eggman as her father, but instead Eggman just sees her as another servant, which would break her heart. In Archie, he had a "son and daughter", but he only mourned them for a few seconds. Once they were both dead, he just said "So much for family." Once they weren't useful, or just because one of them betrayed him, he immediately stopped caring about family.

When talking about Sonic frontiers I’d need to differentiate the fact that I appreciate the tone not the writing. A big flaw with Frontiers writing is that it tries to connect itself to previous games without grasping that there’s a REASON why the other games don’t do that. Whether you like a sonic game or not it has a strength of being its own thing just another one of Sonic’s adventures that doesn’t muddle the timeline by trying to connect one. With frontiers though it’s like when you’ve written up a rough draft in pen and cross out all the mistakes but instead of writing a clean looking final draft you just hand in that edited rough draft that looks like a mess. By trying to more fix previous story decisions instead of just being it’s own story the character writing in Frontiers is not as strong as it could have been. That’s just one of the many problems with the game another one I can draw attention to is heavy breaking of emersion with floating platforms and rails popping in to progress in this realistic looking world, it really should have had a world that looked more creative like in Bowsers Fury or Forgotten land if it wanted to be open world so it wouldn’t be as off putting. It works for Zelda and Pokemon switch games because those aren’t platformers and they have natural ways of progressing an open world with some realistic looking environments such as gliders/sheikah slate abilities/ride pokemon respectively. That’s the only other example I’ll bring up because you did a great job of covering pretty much everything else. Great video, *side note I appreciate the work on the captions it follows what you’re saying perfectly.

Some won't say it, some think it'd be lazy and bad but I don't and I don't care, what Tails was in Sonic Forces was so horribly bad that it should've been, in fact, been retconned out of existence, that horrible idea doesn't DESERVE to be acknowledged as part of the series' past and I absolutely DESPISE the idea of it NEEDING to be acknowledged because I found it THAT disgusting of a thing.

(REPOSTED BECAUSE OF ERROR) It's funny you should bring up the "kids' stuff" bit regarding Ian Flynn. Following issue #50 of the IDW comics, people started getting more openly upset towards how its version of Sonic was portrayed. The short version is that the central theme of the comic (intentionally or no) is about Sonic's heroic philosophy of compassion and mercy coming into conflict with both villains who refuse to change and the impact they leave on Sonic's friends and other innocent people. Fundamental misunderstanding of Sonic's core character aside (Sonic doesn't have a philosophy, he's a nice guy who just does what he wants for the sake of it), the comic never has Sonic outright confront his ideals, and instead has him go on wordy and pretentious platitudes about how he's a superhero and he wants everyone to be free and blah blah blah you suck for not agreeing with him. The comic can't be totally in favor of Sonic's ideals because it indeed shows the negative consequences of them, it can't be totally against Sonic's ideals because it puts him on a pedestal both in-universe and from a storytelling perspective, and it can't be a case of "the true answer is somewhere in between" because it never reaches any sort of resolution or answer. Kids reading the book will likely either think Sonic's self-righteous attitude is something that should be emulated (a bad takeaway), or they'll hate Sonic for being a pushover and think the lesson is to always punish evil and never look for the good in people (also a bad takeaway). Crap on the Sonic movies all you want, but at least they have narrative stakes and themes. Sonic learns he can't run from his problems, Tails learns to become more confident, Knuckles learns that heroism is about helping others rather than just the glory of handling yourself. Kids have something meaningful to take away when they leave the theater. Now, after seeing all the discourse surrounding it, how did Mr. Ian Flynn, the so-called "best Sonic writer" who "understands the characters" and "is pretty much a god for Sonic", respond? Did Flynn acknowledge criticism from people (some of his own fans included), and vow to do better in the future? Nah, but Daniel Barnes did that for his own work, so good on that guy. Did Flynn try to explain why he chose to write Sonic a certain way, thus showing his mindset as a writer and allowing readers to judge it more fairly? Nah, that requires valuing personal introspection and personal responsibility, and nobody has time for that. If neither of those were the case, then what did Mr. Flynn do? Well, after stating that issue #50 was about Sonic conveying the "SEGA standard" for his character to the audience, he followed up with this: "[Sonic's] point of view is very simple and idealized, but it's also a children's fantasy. You know, we're not going to be able to answer these high-level moral questions that humanity has been grappling with since we had an understanding of morality to begin with in a Sonic book, this is introductory level. And if you're in your twenties or thirties or forties and you don't find this surface-level approach fully satisfying… go read adult material. Go read stuff that does delve into that, and does try to tackle it, and does something smarter. This- this is not something smarter." Need I say more?

Knuckles actually wasn't voiced by Travis in this game.

How is it that the Sonic movies from Paramount are better at storytelling than the Sonic games from the 2010s to now? Even despite those films' flaws. Especially when Sonic Unleashed proved to us that Sonic is capable of Cinematic storytelling, through that game's opening cutscene.

My problem with sonic as a whole is that i don't know who sonic is anymore. Everyone has their own interpretation on who sonic was that, in all the chaos from each era, im left wondering if sonic is today. Is sonic an calm introvert? idk. Is he a snarky guy? who can say. Is he a heroic shounen protagonist? I can't tell you anymore. Sonic has been changed so much over the years and people constantly tell you who sonic is supposed to be that im left wondering who sonic is anymore. He needs his own shadow the hedgehog game to fully understand who sonic is anymore.

My comment will be long, so I apologize, I have a lot to say in regards to Amy and I agree with you 100% she was much better back then than now. (I'll also post a shorter part 2) Here is my overall main issue with the Modern Amy vs 2000s Amy Fan debates, the basis I see a lot of people use is the fact that she is no longer stereotypical or the fact she has motivation in her modern form. When in reality they didn't make her "less stereotypical" they just made her stereotypical in a different way that people are fine with because she fits THEIR image of what they like about her (which feels rather sexist), especially since prior to her change nobody ever offered solutions to improve her character, they just complained about her existence while using a lot of hyperbole in their arguments. Even though I myself didn't hate her character, speaking from the perspective of a detractor, if I wanted to say she's better, the only reason I have is just because I prefer this one over the older one, which by then isn't even an argument, what exactly makes her more progressive or better beyond she doesn't crush on Sonic? Because all they have done in modern media is make her a female stereotype, she's the main girl of the group, she's a voice of reason, has a motherly disposition, and is overall defined by kindness. But yet this is exactly the type of characteristics that solely defined female characters back in the 50s, 60, 70s, 80s and even early 90s media. This was even the designated role for female characters in sitcoms. This was typical in tradition of female housewife characters (or the girl the protagonist had to save), in which those traits solely defined them, which were often criticized for subjecting female characters to dull and sexist roles, but is somehow progressive for Amy? I've always found it so weird how the fanbase always puts Amy in a weird double standard, while ranting how she invokes double standards in certain instances, when tbh I find this has evolved into people just inserting any type of rant they can find based on systemic issues. Yes, it is important to note it's just as important to take male harassment seriously as it is female, but not every situation written with the perspective of "female gives unwanted advances" is them doing that. I think people take it too seriously or insert things that aren't even that intent. Not to mention the purpose of Amy initially was supposed to be more extreme with her emotions compared to everyone, she won't just be excited, she would exclude energy in her excitement. I mean really, she was also an immature pre-teen girl, so it's not exact farfetched to say that yeah, she's going to be annoying, but like that could be said for literally anybody at their younger age in a dose of self-reflection as you get older. Pre-teens and teens do stupid and immature things! Amy's crush reflects that (when not being flanderized anyway) It's like the whole "mature vs immature" thing the fanbase uses toward her. Firstly, being immature doesn't inheritably make a character bad. Secondly, when you mature you don't strip away everything about yourself to where outside of one attribute, your entire persona doesn't just fade away, you can change things about yourself or have a more mature outlook and even outgrow things, but Modern Amy feels like diet version of Boom Amy and had all her traits outside of kindness removed, that's not how mature works, she didn't redefine any of her characteristics in a different way, she just isn't showing them period, Amy losing all her traits wouldn't be "mature" its just subdued, which is not what she was. Even with how Boom Amy displays her crush on Sonic, moments where its referenced showcase some creepy factor too. Only Boom Amy was doing it in secret. And tbh, the whole "two characters secretly like each other, but don't admit it" trope is even more tropey than the unrecruited crush. This isn't me shaming Boom Amy btw, she's obviously supposed to be a different character, but I'm just annoyed how the fanbase uses her as an excuse to bash Retro Amy, while also making Modern Amy less distinct as a character due to similar traits she displays with Boom Amy, just having every one of her flaws stripped, while only taking the motherly, female and subdued attributes of Boom Amy. Speaking of Boom Amy, the only reason Boom Amy gets a pass is because she's "mature" yet beyond this reasoning, I NEVER see anyone analyze why her flaws her okay in Boom and not in the games pre-Lost World, despite displaying the same flaws outright. Since both Amy's displayed the same level of meanness with their tone when it came to their temper, hell Boom Amy would often death glare at someone for questioning her ethics, like that scene in the episode where they try to help Tails ask out Zooey where she yells at Tails about being a "refined woman" only to go back to a composed disposition the same moment, this is exactly what 2000's Amy would do, as evident of things like Heroes or even X. Or how in other scenes in the show she is shown to be bossy and mean toward her friends. Boom Amy was much more bossy and self-righteous, often bossing her friends around and scolding them whenever she believes they have done something wrong. On: Sonic Boom a comic book written by Ian Flynn that predates the cartoon, introduces Amy as bossy and with temper problems, having problems with Knuckles and being passive aggressive with him in particular. And as the cartoon went on she became Increasingly pushy and egocentric, again these are similar traits people unanimously hated Amy for but are fine for Boom Amy because she's "mature" when these flaws are just as apparent here. And both of them were used for comedy. When it came to Sonic X, I find a lot of her actions exaggerated there too. Like the cruise ship episode or the date one. I never understood why people hated Amy in that episode, while Sonic doesn't like water and its fine for him to feel that way (and admittedly everyone could've tried to be more understanding) it was wrong for him to attempt to gaslight Amy and Tails as an excuse to get off the ship. He intentionally used Amy's feelings for him to make her swing her hammer around so people think she's unhinged so they can leave the ship, she ONLY decides to react the way she does because she catches onto his plan and uses that against him. He asked her to swing her hammer. Well, she does that. She also calls him out. Keep in mind, he did this with TAILS as well! As a side note, I don't understand how everyone criticizes Sonic X Amy for being a stalker, when like how is she a stalker when she's literally with the group at all times, is part of the friend group, is chilling out in the Thorndyke Mansion, and actively gets herself in mishaps with the group? She's even often invited by Tails on missions because any time he appears with the Tornado Amy's often with him, being a stalker would imply she's some random girl who stumps upon the group and follows their every move and action, how can someone be a stalker if they are apart of the same group and live in the same residence? LOL when in Sonic X Again this feels like a tacked on negative connotation because it was easy for people to do that. Amy having flaws didn't make her a bad character. Quite the opposite. Characters who have room for personal growth and development are infinitely more interesting than characters who are perfect angels with nothing to learn. Amy was the former, but has become the latter outside of TMOSTH, which is the ONLY Modern version of her I like outside of IDW. And even so, the latter has done her inconsistently at times.

Between the redundant lines, Family Guy-esque flashbacks, stilted cutscene animations and member-berry references bolted into all of the character interactions in Frontiers, I zoned out so often when watching this game’s story on RU-vid. So glad I completely ignored Frontiers before and after release. Been massively let down with Lost World and Forces before and I wasn’t gonna be fooled a 3rd time.

disagree with almost all of this video but you present your points really well and the video is very well made

The Riders games have the best cutscenes man. Same for heroes in game cutscenes but they're very short.

This video is pretty much how I feel about Frontiers' story. A bunch of references and clunky dialogue in a painful attempt at overcorrecting on criticisms of the series. Like you said, im sure Ian Flynn is a cool guy and all, and I appreciate his earnestness when it comes to the series. BUT, Frontiers has given me a very bad impression of his writing. It almost makes me feel like he's too much of a sonic fan for his own good, inlcuding superfluous details because they would make a fan coom rather than because they make sense. I like his work on the comics (even if i do feel like IDW plays it far too safe, though im sure he has less control over that aspect), and I'd even like to see him try his hand at writing spinoffs (whenever the series stops trying to play it safe and actually does spin offs again), but I cant say i feel at all confident in him writing for the mainline series from now on.

I want to mention that, from a franchise point of view, the ending of Frontiers holds no weight. You have this sunsetting visage of the characters telling each other they are going to go it alone for a while in the immediate future, parting separate ways to each grow independently. However, IMMEDIATELY after this, they have...a birthday party on a train? Ok that's fine, they're friends after all. Oh, actually, now they're all together again in Cream's dreams fighting Eggman. So the ending of Frontiers is less-so a real indicator of any of Tails, Amy, or Knuckles' potential growth and moreso a "hypothetical growing" that is happening "off-screen" lol. Ian can explain-text this problem away though in the 'next game' im sure with more riveting dialogue!

My somewhat hot take about Amy is the lack of any type of personality in her these days is the direct result of this “ewww cooties” ass misogyny that was rampant in the 2000s. Characters like her, Sakura, etc. literally being hated for being outwardly girly. The assumption was their whole characters revolves around men but they were literally just young girls in love and had character way beyond that, whether good or bad. Hell, I think it was better when she had flaws instead of this boring caricature we have now.

I don't think the creators at Sonic Team have any vision for what to do with this franchise or characters. They seemly just copy what they think is popular without fully understanding why and have any side characters present just cheerlead. This whole game was the definition of boring, bland, and tedious

Ian’s writing style really hasn’t changed that much from his Archie days, where he would look at problems or bad stories from older days and bring them up to create something new. In those it felt like he was cleaning up shop while telling an ACTUAL story, not just clearing the board and waiting years before telling a good story. Even stuff like the dialogue and references were handled with much more grace back then, and it kinda sucks how it started getting exaggerated around the reboot era of Archie, and reached its boiling point in IDW and Frontiers. I love Ian as a writer and he’s a huge inspiration to me, but it sucks that I find a lot of his newer stuff so middling. Good video.

Sitting in fields and complaining is honestly a dream

After all is said and done, what is Frontiers without the references? Without the goal of "fixing" what came before? What is Frontiers without the 2010's?

Damn dawg maybe you should write the next Sonic game. Your idea about Amy realistically thinking about how she feels about Sonic genuinely inspired me, sounds super cool!

Ooh, time to mess with him. And then the heart transition. Bro....😂😂😂

Might as well comment on this again since Frontiers' writing is the gift that keeps on giving. I don't like "Eggdad" or "Dadbotnik" or whatever you call it, either. Not just because it highlights how Sage's character starts and ends with being Eggman's morality pet, but because it involves Eggman being completely derailed as a character- he's not nice and cordial, he just ACTS nice and cordial to stroke his ego and "gentleman genius" persona. However, there is ONE way I could imagine a concept like that would work, and even then I'm not 100% confident that it'd be satisfying: have it be a complete inversion of the Bowser Jr. dynamic. The way I see it, Bowser Jr. is meant to emphasize that Bowser isn't just a scary fairy tale monster. Bowser kidnaps princesses, torments Mario and friends, and has a chip on his shoulder the size of Brooklyn, but multiple games show that he does ultimately care about his minions even if he doesn't always show it. He's the kind of villain who ACTUALLY has a soft side despite how he loves to prop himself up as the biggest and baddest guy around, and he cares about Junior and even tries to spend quality time with him. You can understand from that alone why Junior admires him, and why his minions are so loyal to him of their own free will. By contrast, have Eggman openly show off to the entire world that he's a "loving father", so that HAS to mean that he has a good heart deep down, right? It can't just be that it's all a performance to make himself look better and that Sage is just a prop. Rather than having Sage be a window into the hidden heart of gold Eggman has deep down (since it, y'know, doesn't exist), have her presence emphasize how shallow and vain Eggman really is. Eggman doesn't actually care about her as a person, he sees her as a means of stroking his ego and hopefully making people a little more comfortable with his ambitions of conquest. And when Sage can't do that for him anymore, he gets rid of her without a shred of regret. ~~And I mean, come on, politicians and corporations do this kinda shit all the time, "I can't be homophobic or ableist my son is those things"~~

So damn hyped for this, I saw the Twitter previews and couldn’t wait. You are one of my favorite RU-vidrs as of recently, thank you for the amazing content man and keep it up 👍

You gotta keep in mind that the vast majority of fans who were hyping up Ian Flynn being the writer for Sonic Frontiers, have never even picked up a Sonic comic in their life. I know this because the sales for the Sonic comics are abysmal and are essentially on life support. So why the hype? Well, the most likely reason is a little known thing called Social Contagion. Since seemingly everyone is of the belief that Ian Flynn is some amazing writer who can do no wrong, then word spreads leading other people to echo the same sentiment. Because if everyone says something is true, then it must be true, right? This is how misinformation begins to spread and is a common occurrence throughout the internet. But, there's still one lingering question. Why does everyone think Sonic Frontiers' story is actually good? Well, this is something that is largely a problem with the Sonic fanbase itself. Sonic fans have a problem with deluding each other into thinking this mediocre thing is good, actually. Why? Because all they want is for Sonic to be great again and are sick of game journalist dunking on the franchise every opportunity they get. So, whenever Sonic fans get served a bowel of shit, they'll tell each other it's actually chocolate and eat it all up. And if you dare say otherwise, then you must hate Sonic or you're nostalgia blind! This is preventing the franchise from actually moving forward, because Sega is of the belief that they are doing just fine the way they are and the fans are happy anyways, so there's no point in trying harder. If we just stop blindly praising everything they put out, then maybe things will change. Hell, remember how everyone clowned on Sonic '06 for being an absolute bug fest of a videogame? That caused them to actually lock in and try to deliver something that was truly made with passion and love for the franchise, that being Sonic Unleashed that was to hopefully win the fans and critics back over. But, by that point the damage was already done and at the time, critics and fans alike slammed it, because of the Werehog. That's when Sonic Team just stopped trying and is now the franchise is a shell of it's former self.

Finally, and open zone Jeb video ❤

To me, these teeny tiny baby steps towards improvement and the constant references to the past feel like Sonic Team are admitting defeat. It’s showing that they KNOW that the franchise was better handled back then, but in only doing surface level call backs instead of actually figuring out why people loved it and implementing them into the games, they’re also admitting that they won’t deliver on what truly works.

Just as Sonic Lost World tried to replicate the success of Super Mario Galaxy without understanding what made that game so great, Frontiers tries to be like every open world game ever and fails at every turn, while not being a fun experience even on it’s own terms

I just passed the first chapter of this video, and I already have to thank you for not skimping on critiquing the presentation and smaller details. It makes me happy knowing that you're not giving this "next gen Sonic experience" a pass. It's the lens I've viewed the games with Unleashed, as that game actively made me feel like I was playing a Sonic game on a next generation console. Animation quality, cutscene direction, opening, ending, fucking lip flaps, all of it speaks volumes about the production values. it's everything BUT nitpicking, so I thank you for not skipping over that stuff. it's these things that have been in my mind ever since the game dropped, but it felt like I was in another universe... thinking that the game was supposed to encite me from the first few minutes.. pfff silly me.

1 year wait was worth it to see this vid 👍❣️

Even as someone who really enjoyed Frontiers and it’s story, I have to admit that this video is very well constructed and sharply written with many well thought out opinions that I can respect and even agree with.

Archie Sonic Comics handled Eggman having robot kids better, yes, he 'loved' them, sure but like your favorite video game kind of way but when one of them betrays him he annihilates her because she failed her evil purpose. He made them to help him conquer. Eggman does not take a lot of life's aspects seriously, he'll gladly pollute because he can, I won't deny he has good things about em but he's evil. Evil

You know seen the thumbnail the only thing i can hear is The Werehog screaming

Honestly couldn't disagree more with your points about Tails, the point of the story isn't that he had "bad days", it's directly said, he's growing up, people that grow up can't be and wouldn't learn a lesson once and never forget it, it's a recontextualization of his character until this point because since sonic 2, Tails was meant to be a younger character, Sonic's little kid brother, and yes I myself do admit that it's putting a bandaid on the original issue, but I really do appreciate what the story did with said recontextualization, with Tails acting like a real person would, focusing on his negative traits and not his positives that sonic points out is admirable and I can see people that struggle with these kinds of thoughts of feeling a "burden" relating to that, I am not saying it was handled perfectly but I respectfully don't agree with your perspective Also he wasn't "looking at the fourth wall" that was just Tails looking away from sonic, fourth wall breaks need to be more obvious than that

Commenting this before I watch the video, but my biggest problem with Frontiers story on the whole is that it feels like nothing but buildup amounting to a massive "IOU" for more interesting things that never happen. Anything that does happen ends up being so unfulfilling that it may as well not even exist. Characters tell us they will be developed and do things instead of actually doing anything. (Tails, Knuckles, Amy) So much time is wasted on the "mystery" of the Ancients and never the entity which actually destroyed them. Much of the game in general is nothing but buildup until its over, and what you leave with just nothing worthwhile. The most telling instance I feel is with the whole "ZAP" symbol the game has. It was front and center in the reveal trailer, appears throughout the game --- and nothing is done with it. Nothing except one throwaway interaction in the update you have to go out of your way to find, which goes "This is the symbol of their God... Maybe it's still out there!!!" Again, notning but a massive IOU. I'm have a feeling much of the reason why the story ended up getting so mangled was that an entire 4th of the game was just completely removed. The original final 4th island, alongside stuff such as the Ancients Ark mentioned within the files in unused voicelines, were completed gutted and never put back in. Of course though, this can't and shouldn't be an excuse, especially for things such as the awkward character writing. It's just a hunch that I've had for how it could've possibly ended up like this.

31:50 Thank you for this segment

Finally, I've needed this. I felt like I was going completely insane since this game launched.

I would say if anything that frontiers is a game with heart. I get you don’t see it that way but I really do feel it’s a game that wears its heart on its sleeve.

I'm honestly surprised you understand Amy a lot better than the majority of this fandom (which all they do is throw shit terms to a wall and see if they stick as liquid shit).