Why don't I just boot up an old SA2 level? - Woodaba
So much for redemption. - Lastkeymusic
These are two quotes from some recent reviews that I've taken a look at right after beating the game, and they've resonated the problems that I've had with it throughout my entire run-through of Sonic Frontiers.
Now, I want to preface this by saying that I have not touched a sonic game in almost a decade, since beating sa2 as a kid. I've seen gameplay videos of the other sonic games as time went on, but I haven't went out of my way to play through them as I just wasn't interested. But with the hubbub of this game receiving praise from players both sonic lovers and not, I wanted to check it out for myself. I will link to both of these people's reviews if you'd like to check it out for yourselves for a deep in-depth look at what the game provides. For now, I will only relay my gripes on my playthrough here with various questions I hope someone in the comments can help me understand.
Why is there a delay with each person sonic homing attacks on? I understand enemies that don't fall with one hit, but the ones that do still have that "stand still" pose that sonic does every time he hits someone.
Why can't I do a small homing attack anymore to get onto a platform, and instead have to use my boost and pray to god that I didn't hit it hard enough to fall down 50 fucking stories?
Why are we retreading on stories that have already been explained and then just brushed these same small stories off to the side like nothing ever happened?
Why did the game not explain to me that I could light dash, and I accidentally did it by pressing my left thumbpad, and even worse WHY DO YOU COME TO A COMPLETE STOP WHEN BOOSTING WITHOUT MOVING THE STICK UP. You can even see it happen if you go on a speed rail thing on the ground and if you stop moving up, you'll come to a complete stop as if someone just hit the brakes hard.
What happened to the music that was very amped up and cheerful, and instead having to listen to the same track for every stage for at least 2 hours?
Why does turning with sonic during the flashback levels feel like I'm trying to turn an old steering wheel that never had some WD40 applied to it?
In these same flashback levels, if I am trying to collect the red rings, why aren't they placed at every shortcut like they were before? The game actively punishes you for either taking these shortcuts, or going to fast when trying to collect the damn things, and I've had to restart these levels a bit of times because of one ring that was either right below a platform or I was going to fast on a rail, and missed the rainbow ring just that was as the end of a grind loop.
WHY DOES SONIC FEEL SO SLOW IN A GAME WHERE HE'S SUPPOSED TO GO FAST. Yes, he can go faster if you upgrade his speed and max out on your rings, but that shouldn't be a reward when you're playing as Sonic the fucking hedgehog.
Why does sonic immediately lose all of his momentum the moment boosting wears off, then he has to slowly start up again?
Why is everyone praising the boss fights when they just boil down to just holding the counter button (Which you don't even have to time?) and just mashing the punch button and watching the same cutscene over and over again until the big bad is dead?
Why is ALL of the "sidecontent" absolutely forced to play and just boiling down to just shitty puzzles or just straight up fucking jump rope?
When trying to go back or even cut through some of the grind rails (Looking at you world 3), why can't I go back and try to go to the rails that I can clearly reach, but I can't because the camera decided to change the way I would land on the grind rail I was aiming to?
Speaking of the camera, for a game that Is supposed to be very open world, the camera sure does love to stay in the 2d format for more than half of the game, which makes me confused why they couldn't go the adventure route and keep the camera focused looking forward on sonic all of the time?
As of writing this, I just beat the last boss and wow, it felt like the people working on this last part of the game were just up playing something like ikaruga and saying, how about we end off the game with that? That'll kill time and we can end it off with a simple press x to win combo and call it a day!
Collecting everything towards the very end was so much of a pain in the ass, that I just resorted to using cheat engine to get the rest of the small medals that sage needed to progress in the last level, because I couldn't be assed to collect them around the world.
Overall, this game has so much of an identity crisis it's insane. On one hand it wants you to do as much as you want at your own leisure, and on the other hand, it wants to have a tight fucking grip on you with a leash to make sure you're not having too much fun, or the adventure will end just like that.
I don't think I'll ever play or think about this game again.
So much for redemption. - Lastkeymusic
These are two quotes from some recent reviews that I've taken a look at right after beating the game, and they've resonated the problems that I've had with it throughout my entire run-through of Sonic Frontiers.
Now, I want to preface this by saying that I have not touched a sonic game in almost a decade, since beating sa2 as a kid. I've seen gameplay videos of the other sonic games as time went on, but I haven't went out of my way to play through them as I just wasn't interested. But with the hubbub of this game receiving praise from players both sonic lovers and not, I wanted to check it out for myself. I will link to both of these people's reviews if you'd like to check it out for yourselves for a deep in-depth look at what the game provides. For now, I will only relay my gripes on my playthrough here with various questions I hope someone in the comments can help me understand.
Why is there a delay with each person sonic homing attacks on? I understand enemies that don't fall with one hit, but the ones that do still have that "stand still" pose that sonic does every time he hits someone.
Why can't I do a small homing attack anymore to get onto a platform, and instead have to use my boost and pray to god that I didn't hit it hard enough to fall down 50 fucking stories?
Why are we retreading on stories that have already been explained and then just brushed these same small stories off to the side like nothing ever happened?
Why did the game not explain to me that I could light dash, and I accidentally did it by pressing my left thumbpad, and even worse WHY DO YOU COME TO A COMPLETE STOP WHEN BOOSTING WITHOUT MOVING THE STICK UP. You can even see it happen if you go on a speed rail thing on the ground and if you stop moving up, you'll come to a complete stop as if someone just hit the brakes hard.
What happened to the music that was very amped up and cheerful, and instead having to listen to the same track for every stage for at least 2 hours?
Why does turning with sonic during the flashback levels feel like I'm trying to turn an old steering wheel that never had some WD40 applied to it?
In these same flashback levels, if I am trying to collect the red rings, why aren't they placed at every shortcut like they were before? The game actively punishes you for either taking these shortcuts, or going to fast when trying to collect the damn things, and I've had to restart these levels a bit of times because of one ring that was either right below a platform or I was going to fast on a rail, and missed the rainbow ring just that was as the end of a grind loop.
WHY DOES SONIC FEEL SO SLOW IN A GAME WHERE HE'S SUPPOSED TO GO FAST. Yes, he can go faster if you upgrade his speed and max out on your rings, but that shouldn't be a reward when you're playing as Sonic the fucking hedgehog.
Why does sonic immediately lose all of his momentum the moment boosting wears off, then he has to slowly start up again?
Why is everyone praising the boss fights when they just boil down to just holding the counter button (Which you don't even have to time?) and just mashing the punch button and watching the same cutscene over and over again until the big bad is dead?
Why is ALL of the "sidecontent" absolutely forced to play and just boiling down to just shitty puzzles or just straight up fucking jump rope?
When trying to go back or even cut through some of the grind rails (Looking at you world 3), why can't I go back and try to go to the rails that I can clearly reach, but I can't because the camera decided to change the way I would land on the grind rail I was aiming to?
Speaking of the camera, for a game that Is supposed to be very open world, the camera sure does love to stay in the 2d format for more than half of the game, which makes me confused why they couldn't go the adventure route and keep the camera focused looking forward on sonic all of the time?
As of writing this, I just beat the last boss and wow, it felt like the people working on this last part of the game were just up playing something like ikaruga and saying, how about we end off the game with that? That'll kill time and we can end it off with a simple press x to win combo and call it a day!
Collecting everything towards the very end was so much of a pain in the ass, that I just resorted to using cheat engine to get the rest of the small medals that sage needed to progress in the last level, because I couldn't be assed to collect them around the world.
Overall, this game has so much of an identity crisis it's insane. On one hand it wants you to do as much as you want at your own leisure, and on the other hand, it wants to have a tight fucking grip on you with a leash to make sure you're not having too much fun, or the adventure will end just like that.
I don't think I'll ever play or think about this game again.
6 Comments
Thank you for leaving your review for me to read! It was really entertaining and left a somber feeling than one with malice when talking about sonic, and since you both have talked about the major talking points, I just wanted to focus on the things that happened to me while I was playing.
controls/physics are fully adjustable in the settings. game handles perfectly with enough tweaking (check the settings i listed in my review if you aren't convinced)
i agree the dime stopping after a boost is frustrating, but it's hardly game breaking for the kind of platforming frontiers aims at. also you can cut a boost jump short by ground pounding for precision platforming when it's needed
lastly your point about collectibles is mind boggling. you used a cheat engine? there's a fishing minigame that practically wins the game for you in less time than it'd take to even boot the cheats up
i agree the dime stopping after a boost is frustrating, but it's hardly game breaking for the kind of platforming frontiers aims at. also you can cut a boost jump short by ground pounding for precision platforming when it's needed
lastly your point about collectibles is mind boggling. you used a cheat engine? there's a fishing minigame that practically wins the game for you in less time than it'd take to even boot the cheats up
Most of your complaints are something the game itself gives you the option to alleviate. The control of Sonic in the open world is fully customizable, including how fast Sonic's top speed is when running normally and boosting.
Light speed dash is something the game tells you how to do between loading screens.
I get your issues with momentum and homing and while it could use some tweaking, I think it works for what the game's trying to accomplish. I know you haven't played since SA2, but most Sonic fans have kinda get used to every single game changing the way Sonic feels to control.
You could literally avoid grinding for Memory Tokens or virtually any collectable by playing Big's Fishing minigame. Using cheat engine for the final stretch of the game sounds so extra. lol
Light speed dash is something the game tells you how to do between loading screens.
I get your issues with momentum and homing and while it could use some tweaking, I think it works for what the game's trying to accomplish. I know you haven't played since SA2, but most Sonic fans have kinda get used to every single game changing the way Sonic feels to control.
You could literally avoid grinding for Memory Tokens or virtually any collectable by playing Big's Fishing minigame. Using cheat engine for the final stretch of the game sounds so extra. lol
@Chandler What's funny and a bit sad is that I never bothered with doing the fishing minigame because I thought it would just be a time killer for the game or just being a for fun thing, and it was only after I beat the game that I went to go watch a youtube video and saw how fun the minigame looked. That's probably the only other regret and might've lessened the blow for me playing to finding these medals. I think I also just brushed off the physics handling settings for the moment as I wanted feel how the out of the box settings, and man was that a pretty bad idea, but at that moment I was just very exhausted and quite frustrated going through the last half of the game that I didn't even bother checking those settings again. Maybe the movement gripe for me might've changed then. Thank you very much for your input though!
@FinalRENIX I've played through most of the loading screens and I don't think I've seen a single training loading screen that showed the player how to lightdash. I might be wrong, but I didn't see it in my playthrough as far as I remember. And as for the physics, and fishing I gave a response to that above. Thank you for the input as well!
@FinalRENIX I've played through most of the loading screens and I don't think I've seen a single training loading screen that showed the player how to lightdash. I might be wrong, but I didn't see it in my playthrough as far as I remember. And as for the physics, and fishing I gave a response to that above. Thank you for the input as well!
"so much of an identity crisis" has been Sonic since it jumped in the 3D shark though. That's a good reason why a lot of people like it actually (and some despise it too). It looks "more defined" now because we have the advantage of time and revision, but back then they were as despised for it.
Everything else it's dandy!
Everything else it's dandy!
lastkeymusic
1 year ago