Sonic Superstars, Sonic Origins & Sonic Frontiers

Announced at last week's Game Awards (The Cappuccino Kid not Best eSports Athlete, my hoop):

Some dick wrote:

Sonic Team presents...Sonic Frontiers, arriving Holiday 2022!

An experience like never before, accelerate to new heights and experience the thrill of high velocity, open-zone freedom. Battle powerful enemies as you speed through the Starfall Islands - landscapes brimming with dense forests, overflowing waterfalls, sizzling deserts and more!

I’m guessing that there’s little-to-no interest in this from most of the other folk who usually post here. But I think it could be worth watching. All the rumours and leaks suggest that it’s exactly the Breath of the Wild-esque open-world game that it’s looking like, just with a blue hedgehog instead of a green elf.

I welcome this move. Sonic Team had something that had the potential to be brilliant on their hands with the ‘boost’ style 3D Sonic games, particularly in the late ‘00s and early ‘10s. They took a new direction with it in 2013 (releasing the troubled Sonic Lost World and then the honking Sonic Boom a year later), but quickly went back to the older formula with Sonic Forces. That proved that you can’t make a game just based on that anymore though – Forces took about four years to develop and about four minutes to complete. Yet another new and braver direction might be the resurgence that the series needs. Or: it could be the next Balan Wonderworld. Who knows!

I'm hopeful for this as a massive open world could actually really good to move through as Sonic. I played The Pathless at the start of the year and one of the best parts of that was zipping around it's open world at high speeds, if it can replicate that then I can see it being a lot of fun.

I'm intrigued by the idea, but that trailer alone did nothing for me. it looked like the most generic Unity Engine tech demo of a world, with Sonic just plonked in.

It's Sonic, so I will buy.

Whilst the concept is certainly intriguing, I've zero confidence in Sonic Team to pull off a solid open-world game in 2022. I'd loved to be proven wrong!

I don't know if we talked about it elsewhere, but the trailer for the second movie dropped as well. After the surprise of the first movie, and the old classic comicbooks and cartoons, Sonic continues to be great in everything except games.

There’s Sonic Origins announced:



Remastered versions of the first four Mega Drive games and the Mega CD game, as well as new modes, animations, missions and unlockables. I think that’s decent going. Mind you, they’re charging full price for it as a digital exclusive, and it’s measurably offering less as a whole than Sonic Mega Collection on GameCube, or even Sonic Jam on the SEGA Saturn. Then there’s the controversy around the DLC – an extra fiver for stuff that I could only generously describe as ‘fluff’.

I may have got it physically but at full price digitally only along with having Mega Collection on GameCube plus other means to play, I'll be passing on it.

I think I've learned my lesson about listening to you lot and buying old Sonic games because they're "good actually". Sonic games age like cum on a sock.

Imagine mugging yourself off and not getting character animation on the main menu, what fools!

They are good but also just get Sonic 2 Ages version on Switch, or the hundreds of ways to play it.

I bought Sonic 2 after you all told me playing Sonic 1 wasn't enough to judge the games by and they added those Mega Drive games to the online like a week later.

Exactly ways to play these games for the most part on PS, Xbox or Switch.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the one that's tricky to play, right?

The other options for the MD era Sonics are

PS4/5
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic CD via NOW
Sonic 3D Blast via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic Spinball via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic the Hedgehog via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 via Mega Drive Classics

Xbox One/Series
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic CD via BC
Sonic 3D Blast via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic Spinball via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic the Hedgehog via BC or via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 via BC or via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 via BC
Sonic & Knuckles via BC

Switch
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine via NSO or via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic 3D Blast via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic Spinball via NSO or via Mega Drive Classics
Sonic the Hedgehog via Mega Drive Classics or via AGES
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 via NSO or via Mega Drive Classics or via AGES

I know I tend to poo on Sonic things easily, but I can't believe some of those things listed in that table are "premium". Character Animation in the main menu. Character Animation in the main menu.

JayMoyles wrote:

Whilst the concept is certainly intriguing, I've zero confidence in Sonic Team to pull off a solid open-world game in 2022. I'd loved to be proven wrong!

Judging by the recent gameplay videos, I have certainly not been proven wrong. The lifeless open world, the bizarre animations, the mind-numbing combat... Frontiers looks like more of the same for 3D Sonic.

I’ve just got round to watching snippets of those IGN trailers, and I’m quite surprised how boring it all looks. I mean all the 3D Sonic games are inconsistent, but all of them have at least some excitement in there somewhere. This just looks flat-out all-around dull. It’s hard to believe that this won’t get delayed, it looks miles off of a 2022 release.

They better not deprive us of a quality soundtrack too – I don’t want any of this Breath of the Wild-like ambience where the only sound you hear for five minutes is a horse taking a pish.

If there's no Crush 40 singing about rolling around at the speed of sound, then it's a lost cause.

I'll be shocked if this still comes out 2022, if it does then it has to be Balan of 2022.

Ohh and Sonic 3 has adapted music in it.

I think it'll be the Balan of 2023 as well to be honest...

No it is coming in 2022, you just don't understand.

...why didn't they just do this at the start? I'm cautiously optimistic about this. No, I'm not going to measure Sonic Frontiers by the same units as the likes of Bayonetta 3, but I think I'll enjoy this.

It does look better than it did when we last posted in here.

I'm finally playing through God of War and it's very apparent it's a fantastic game. Even with that in mind though, when this releases the same day as Ragnarok I'm probably gonna end up buying this instead, why? It's just the way I am but at least I know The King of Cappuccino's has my back.