I went all-in knowing there was jank but it was the kind of jank folks with my kinda taste could at least appreciate and considering I skipped Sonic Forces, it had been a noticeable several years of no Sonic (ig excluding Mania which I thought was okay) and as an ex-sonic hyperfixation babychild, that wasn't gonna do.
I think genuinely the #1 thing you gotta do to get the absolute most out of Frontiers is to ignore the default soundtrack and just shuffle through everything you got atm.
The original OST is alright and all but the actual island music is way too dreary for how frenetic and fast running around actually is, it's trying too hard to match Breath of the Wild's contemplative and mellow solitude when the gameplay just does not reflect that.
Granted that may come from me getting in on this right after Bomb Rush Cyberfunk which also invites you to play its music however you want but honestly games should just do this more, doesn't matter if they're old tracks, it's a freeform open-world game, the music matching the vibe is what's gonna matter especially if you're going for 100%.
I was pleasantly surprised to find there's more attention placed on the character dynamics that hasn't really been present since like, maybe Adventure 2?
Amy and Knuckles' voices are weird as hell idk what happened there but everyone else is good, Mike Pollock sounds kinda bored to be there though which feels odd considering Eggman gets more of a legit character arc than anyone else this time.
Sage as his AI-generated daughter is probably my favorite new character in the series in years which only made me wish she got to do more. Her character design does stick out a lot considering everyone else is either familiar faces or have more abstract non-human designs.
Speaking of, I have no clue what the deal is with the Kocos, I already figured it was something you'd have to really dig for to get a full grasp on which is pretty rare, I've gotten very accustomed to just getting all the essential info spoonfed so having such a big part of the game be an actual mystery you have to look into is incredibly interesting. I mean I'll probably just look it up later but it's the thought that counts, right-
The actual game is shockingly lax compared to the more stringent BotW, practically every resource can just be bought off of Big the Cat's weird lo-fi fishing black market, I maxed out my speed and ring capacity practically by accident as a result but I wouldn't necessarily call it a design mistake. Most of what you'll collect isn't really hardfixed to any set value and you aren't given dung as a joke for collecting Every Single Koco on every island. Grinding Big's minigame just serves as an alternative method of progression in case you're stuck fetching dozens of the same thing at a time. (which in the case of Friend Tokens got particularly tiring in the final island)
It feels like this game's already found its most dedicated audience through the people that are really into teching around its occasionally wonky control scheme and I can't really think of a better demographic than that. It's mostly fine and sometimes infuriating as a casual experience but when you get into its rhythm, it works.
Also a lot of the game was supposed to be in cyberspace which is aesthetically barely taken advantage of, apparently there were budget and time constraints which makes sense, still wish they could've leaned fully into it instead of them just working as portals to mostly short levels that are mostly lifted from previous games lol.
I guess tl;dr running fast to Crush 40 good as usual!! could've been a lot better in a lot of places but I trust that whatever Sonic Team's got cooking next will learn from this.
Honestly they should just make a Sonic THPS, bring back Sonic Extreme babey-
I think genuinely the #1 thing you gotta do to get the absolute most out of Frontiers is to ignore the default soundtrack and just shuffle through everything you got atm.
The original OST is alright and all but the actual island music is way too dreary for how frenetic and fast running around actually is, it's trying too hard to match Breath of the Wild's contemplative and mellow solitude when the gameplay just does not reflect that.
Granted that may come from me getting in on this right after Bomb Rush Cyberfunk which also invites you to play its music however you want but honestly games should just do this more, doesn't matter if they're old tracks, it's a freeform open-world game, the music matching the vibe is what's gonna matter especially if you're going for 100%.
I was pleasantly surprised to find there's more attention placed on the character dynamics that hasn't really been present since like, maybe Adventure 2?
Amy and Knuckles' voices are weird as hell idk what happened there but everyone else is good, Mike Pollock sounds kinda bored to be there though which feels odd considering Eggman gets more of a legit character arc than anyone else this time.
Sage as his AI-generated daughter is probably my favorite new character in the series in years which only made me wish she got to do more. Her character design does stick out a lot considering everyone else is either familiar faces or have more abstract non-human designs.
Speaking of, I have no clue what the deal is with the Kocos, I already figured it was something you'd have to really dig for to get a full grasp on which is pretty rare, I've gotten very accustomed to just getting all the essential info spoonfed so having such a big part of the game be an actual mystery you have to look into is incredibly interesting. I mean I'll probably just look it up later but it's the thought that counts, right-
The actual game is shockingly lax compared to the more stringent BotW, practically every resource can just be bought off of Big the Cat's weird lo-fi fishing black market, I maxed out my speed and ring capacity practically by accident as a result but I wouldn't necessarily call it a design mistake. Most of what you'll collect isn't really hardfixed to any set value and you aren't given dung as a joke for collecting Every Single Koco on every island. Grinding Big's minigame just serves as an alternative method of progression in case you're stuck fetching dozens of the same thing at a time. (which in the case of Friend Tokens got particularly tiring in the final island)
It feels like this game's already found its most dedicated audience through the people that are really into teching around its occasionally wonky control scheme and I can't really think of a better demographic than that. It's mostly fine and sometimes infuriating as a casual experience but when you get into its rhythm, it works.
Also a lot of the game was supposed to be in cyberspace which is aesthetically barely taken advantage of, apparently there were budget and time constraints which makes sense, still wish they could've leaned fully into it instead of them just working as portals to mostly short levels that are mostly lifted from previous games lol.
I guess tl;dr running fast to Crush 40 good as usual!! could've been a lot better in a lot of places but I trust that whatever Sonic Team's got cooking next will learn from this.
Honestly they should just make a Sonic THPS, bring back Sonic Extreme babey-