Does Sonic Frontiers Still SUCK!? | One Year Later

A year ago the world was given Sonic Frontiers on all modern consoles. I was not a huge fan of it when it came out and said as much in a video. Now that a year has passed since the game released, and we have gotten three waves of free DLC for it...how do I feel while playing the game now? Well...watch and find out!
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#sonic #sonicfrontiers

[ViewtifulJae]

I don’t think it sucked at all but it definitely had room for improvement

[TheShapeshifter]

Unlike Sonic Forces, I hope we see another game like Frontiers. I think this is the type of game I would want to buy and play. Sega needs to put more resources into Sonic games at this point because it's getting really sad seeing how low budget these games are.

[czms]

Trust me the most useful attack in frontiers is the stomp, it cuts through the cutscene attacks and it’ll slams through there hp

[joelbond]

After finishing The Final Horizon, I went to finish a play through of Unleashed that I had on the back burner. And as I was playing the final boss against Perfect Dark Gaia, it made me miss something I didn’t realise was missing in Frontiers’ bosses: the dialogue.

A lot of the older games had characters talking during the Super Sonic bosses, and they not only added to the atmosphere, but also explained how to beat the bosses in case some players found it unclear. Frontiers lacked this and I think that was a big mistake. They should definitely be added back in the future imo.

[callumsparrow]

Some say if Mania released in 1997 it would’ve been torn to shreds for being derivative and tired, but I’d honestly say that Frontiers would’ve been given no mercy if it was released in 2013.

[ghrtyeje]

Despite loving Frontiers a lot, I won't deny that the tower climbs in The Final Horizon made me rage to a shocking degree. I was baffled to say the least, and then the final boss happened and I was clueless on what to do. By the time I defeated it and saw the new ending, I felt completely hollow. My feelings have softened a bit since then, and I realize some people actually wanted Frontiers to be a lot harder, and they definitely got what they were asking for, but I was so relieved to discover that Easy mode lets you cheese those towers and have a longer parry in those later challenges, because wow.

Clearly this video wasn't easy for you to make, but I really appreciate that you went through with it, because I honestly had no idea whether you would feel better or worse about the game overall after the updates, and was very curious to hear your thoughts. You raised a lot of great points in this video, regardless of how I feel about Frontiers personally.

[Ow-OMG]

7:50 unsure if dmc5 carries this over but higher style rankings in the dmc games always made your moves and combos stronger, not only is it an aesthetically pleasing design choice, it's that it actually rewards the player by making their attacks more effective

[ssj]

It's funny to me that in November of 2022, both Sonic frontiers in pokémon Scarlet & Violet released to a magnitude amount of issues, bugs and overall questionable game design decisions and yet, the approach both games had gone to try to redeem themselves were completely different.

Frontiers may not be as terrible or 'absolute peak fiction' as what people on the internet like to claim it is, but I will at least be grateful that despite how little time and more importantly, _budget_ Sega granted their devs with (along with threatening to fire the director too simply for asking for a delay), Sonic Team really tried to improve their game in several fronts from quality of life features, different control schemes, and straight up new content plus mechanics that add more to the overall experience all for free.

One sought to try their players back with core improvements to their game, focusing on its weaker elements, while the other simply charged their consumers another season pass where they go to a secluded area completely separate from the main game where they just do the same thing that people are tired of for the last few decades. Also all the bugs, glitches and performance issues for Pokemon have not been addressed either because _we gotta get that bread am I right?_

And while I would say Sonic Team didn't quite fully succeed in making the final product as great as it could've been, for the first time in a long time, I can actually say that I have hope for the future of this franchise.

I just wish the light I see at the end of the table is not another Red Herring where Sega ignores all the feedback for this one, pivots, and chugs out yet another completely different gameplay style that nobody asked for🤦‍♀️

[yyeahsure]

am i going insane or is the game HEAVILY chugging in this videos footage every few minutes? like holy christ that looks horrendous and im surprised nobody else has mentioned it in the comments so far

[lincolnthemop]

It pains me to agree, but this is exactly how I feel about the game looking back. This game in concept gets some parts right, but in execution it does a lot of it poorly. I hope that going forward we get something that reflects the AAA intention that unleashed provided, but that's another 5ish years waiting and that hurts to say.

[justryan]

I feel like the Frontiers design could work PERFECTLY if it was done in a city, or cities. In Unleashed you go from continent to continent, this could work with Frontiers.
If Sonic Team comes out with a Frontiers 2 turn it into a world adventure.

[superbodoque]

Anyone else think he should drop the clickbaity titles? I prefered the older more genuine and straightforward titles that made you want to watch the video for the "how come?" or "why?" instead of the "does it?"

[sonicthehegheghog]

14:33 This scene literally screams "I'm a first year film student in a big project" xd

[dandyspacedandy]

frankly the most interesting thing to expect out of frontiers for me is if some madman redesigns all the open zones to have challenges and structures that fit the area instead of just being floating rails and springs

[lasercraft]

Honestly... being able to play as Amy, Knuckles, and Tails was the only legitimately fun part of the DLC. And that was entirely because once you fully upgrade all of their abilities they can literally FLY across the map, making it really fun just because of their ridiculous mobility. You can basically skip most of their puzzles because of this... which is fine by me because getting the reward is the only fun part of doing said puzzles.

The Trials were just awful, and very unintuitive. The towers you had to climb were unforgiving on any difficulty other than easy. The titan boss rush was HORRIBLE because the bosses are so janky and weren't designed with the perfect parry in mind. And worst of all, what could have been an epic finally with a new Super form was bogged down by the horrible camera, janky mechanics they never told you about (pressing the trigger to switch targets to take out the purple wire), and a rather repetitive counter attack animation.

[dumbpro]

I've never agreed with something I disagree with more than this. Coming from somebody whos completed the game 3 times, I think all your gripes with the game are valid and things I don't like myself (like the parry). I still think the game is fun though, and I've enjoyed the first two updates thoroughly.

[why-ubmt]

Frontiers was always a great game for me personally. And the updates simply improved everything I already enjoyed. Of course I'm aware of the unpolished state the game is. But for me the good far outweigh what I found bad.

[orthochronicity]

It still boggles my mind that the basic movement parameters have sliders. Sure, this helps people figure out the movement that they like best, but they shouldn't need to. That's the point of designing a game: you design it. And that's all of it since its different components have to interact and play well together. If there's such a disparity in being able to move around the map as requiring sliders for acceleration, then the map just isn't designed well. It's one thing to have sliders for FOV and sensitivity -- the physical, IRL ability to control how the game responds to your inputs -- but how fast you move?

Ross Scott pointed out in his most recent video that a lot of game criticism gets bogged down with criticizing the low hanging fruit that isn't really the problem. Sliders aren't inherently a problem, and it's good to give players more deftness to their ability to control the playable character. But the bigger -- deeper -- issue is why that needs to be done for such fundamental movement parameters in a game series where momentum and map design encouraging building skill with fast pace, appealing movement. If you had to provide sliders in Sonic The Hedgehog or Sonic Adventure 1/2 for their speed and acceleration, you would break the game. And that's not breaking it in the way speedrunners do and people routinely praise Sonic games for letting you do. You'd either have settings too low to allow you to actually complete levels without many, many more automated sections, or you have settings too high to actually control Sonic in a way that makes the levels feasible without constantly stopping to regain control. Yet this isn't really an issue in Frontiers, because the map isn't really built with Sonic's movement in mind. The map just is and Sonic's movement just is; they weren't designed together.

And this is the same issue with the new update. We can debate final boss or ending is better, but that's not really the issue. The developers shouldn't be able to do that. And that isn't to say they should be barred from doing it, but that it should break the design of the game. The entire game led up to that point and supposedly was designed with some sort of goal in mind, both for the concluding gameplay and the story's conclusion. Maybe these were the dueling ideas for where they game was going and the team never pinned it down to a single creative direction. Maybe it's a retcon based on critical reception and the original wasn't actually all that important. Either way, the design was never finished or (worse) done in the first place.

Sonic Team has done some amazing games in the past, and designed games that fundamentally changed aspects of gaming, taking on (And briefly eclipsing, IMO) their rival of choice, Mario. It's just so painful seeing them not able to succeed anymore, and I kind of wish I hadn't learned about the Sammy-Sega merger, because it explains too much of what's happened over the years while being just cynically mercenary in the worst sense (Moon Channel's video on "Why Sega isn't Overprotective of Their Intellectual Property?", if you want to know more).

[batty_tsukimiya]

THANK YOU!!

I really needed to someone to actually point out stuff that all people likes to ignore. It really saddens me that this is a the project people settles with

[xgaming]

This game may not be perfect, but it's still a great Sonic game and a step up for the future of the franchise moving forward.