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wereh0gz · 7 months

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Hello, I’m one of the contestants of the AU Sonic Smackdown, @delightrolls, the creator of the Sonic Thunderstorm AU. I was trying to decide who to vote for between you and @eloaholiveira, but the decision is proving to be difficult. Would you kindly tell me more about your Old Man Sonic AU? Anything and everything you feel comfortable sharing about your outstanding story! And if you want some more specific questions I would like to ask:

Why has Eggman Nega returned to Sonic’s Dimension?

How did Eggman Nega learn that Sonic is immortal?

If Eggman Nega is present, is Eggman also present and if so, what does he do?

Where and how does your Sonic respawn?

What is Omega like in this AU? Has he managed to destroy all Eggman robots? If so, what is he doing now?

What is Chip like in this AU? If Chip is present, is Dark Gaia as well?

How did Sonic, Tails, and Shadow handle the deaths of their other friends?

Was Tails born as a Kitsune or did something make him like that? If some made him like that what happened? If he was born like that, are there other Kitsune?

Can Tails still fly despite the greater number of tails?

And one just out of curiosity, what would happen if your Sonic were to be killed while all the Chaos Energy in his body has been neutralized? Would he find a different way to come back or would he actually die? I ask because after my Sonic, Duality, gets corrupted by the End in Sonic Frontiers they gain the ability Chaos Cancel from the End’s Absence Energy which allows them to neutralize all Chaos Energy in a certain range though that energy will eventually come back. Could my Sonic theoretically kill your Sonic?

Thank you for your time and regardless of whether you win or lose I think your story is outstanding :)

OH WOW THAT'S A LOT OF QUESTIONS

I'd be happy to answer them all for you :]

(Answers under the cut bc this got really long lol)

1. Why has Eggman Nega returned to Sonic's dimension?

From my understanding, Nega has some conflicting lore about his origins, so in this AU he's actually just Eggman's descendent from Silver's future and not from another dimension entirely.

2. How did Eggman Nega learn that Sonic is immortal?

It actually took a while to figure out, since Sonic keeps to himself a lot more than he used to, and he's really slippery and hard to capture or kill. He wasn't even sure if that old blue hedgehog getting in his way was actually Sonic for a pretty long time.

He did kill him once, though. Managed to stab him through the head with one of his mechs in a fight, basically lobotomized him. You see that scar under his floppy ear? Yeah.

Shadow, Omega, Silver, and Tails got Nega to retreat, but he was sure Sonic was gone for good. Turns out he was wrong, as Sonic came back months later to foil his plans for world domination again, quieter and much, much angrier than before.

This leads to Nega looking into his past in as much detail as possible, as well as trying to capture Sonic and study him to find some way to get rid of him for good. And that one death would not be the last caused by him.

3. If Eggman Nega is present, is Eggman also present and if so, what does he do?

Eggman is long dead by this point, as this AU takes place 200 in the future from when most Sonic games take place. Can't do much when you're six feet under lol.

4. Where and how does you Sonic respawn?

He doesn't really *respawn* so to speak, he regenerates from whatever is left of his body after dying. I guess you could call it respawning if he's reduced to atoms, as he would technically have to come back from nothing, but that (thankfully) has never happened.

Whenever he dies, he's usually taken to one of Tails' workshops by Shadow so that Tails can oversee his regeneration/recovery. He's built machines that help speed up the regeneration process using Chaos Energy. They're like special beds that blast him with high amounts of energy until he can come back to life and recover from his injuries on his own.

He can regenerate without the machines if needed, but it takes a lot longer and he doesn't like it. He hates the feeling of a "restless death", as he calls it, and would rather come back as fast as possible even if he wakes up scarred and in pain.

5. What is Omega like in this AU? Has he managed to destroy all Eggman robots? If so, what is he doing now?

Omega is pretty similar to how he is in canon. Still very much the rage-filled lover of extreme violence and destruction we all know and love, but he's ever so slightly more open to showing affection to his friends now (even calls them his friends outright sometimes!)

He's destroyed as many of Eggman robots as he possibly could, which, as far as he's aware, is all of them, so he's satisfied on that front. However, he does have the newfound goal of destroying all of Eggman *Nega's* robots, too, ensuring Eggman's legacy is wiped out completely. So he joins Shadow and Silver in fighting Nega whenever he can.

Achieving this new goal gets progressively more difficult as his body becomes harder and harder to repair, though, but he won't give up until his job is done (or until he finally kicks the bucket).

6. What is Chip like in this AU? If Chip is present, is Dark Gaia as well?

Chip actually comes in later on in whatever semblance of a cohesive story I have in my head, after Nega's properly defeated. They'd basically be the focus of the second major arc in this story.

They actually fused with Dark Gaia after their premature release from the planet's core, seeking to embrace each other and end the cycle they were a part of, reforming into "True Gaia". After some time, their seal eventually weakened again, which led to parts of them escaping back into the surface and forming a new physical body.

He struggles a lot with his identity and guilt as both Light and Dark Gaia's identities and memories suddenly merged into one. It's hard to tell where Chip ends and Dark Gaia begins. He's still kind and curious, like he was when Sonic first met him years ago, but he can also be prone to mood swings and even act animalistic and feral sometimes. The most notable change, though, is that he is very sleepy all the time.

It would travel the world with Sonic and Tails to energy "hotspots" scattered around the planet in order to absorb the parts of it still sealed inside the core, all while helping Sonic connect with the current world in the process.

7. How did Sonic, Tails, and Shadow handle the deaths of their other friends?

Shadow had time to come to terms with the fact that he would outlive his friends. He'd known he was immortal for much longer than Sonic or Tails, so he could at least try to prepare for it long before it happened. Of course, it still hurt when they eventually passed away, but he continues to move forward.

He looks back at the times they shared fondly and keeps their memory alive in a series of journals he's written.

Tails didn't have as much time to prepare himself like Shadow did, but he handled it alright. He misses them a lot, but he lives on because it's what they would've wanted. He often regrets not having spent more time with them, though.

He keeps a database of all the information (both public and private) he could possibly have about them, including biographies, images, videos, even things like chat logs in a cloud network he created to ensure they'd never be forgotten.

Sonic... didn't take it so well. It's like he never really processed that he would outlive his friends at all. He never thought about it, never *wanted* to think about it, despite the fact that he learned of his immortality well before that time came. So when it eventually happened, and he had to watch his friends eventually die one after another, it hit him *hard*.

He isolated himself and started hoarding anything and everything that reminded him of them, from gifts he was given years ago to pictures that had begun to fade. He avoided facing that grief head on for as long as he could, but he eventually began to forget what they were like, and was forced to move on.

He still grieves them, but now it feels like he's grieving phantoms instead of actual people. He hates it.

8. Was Tails born as a Kitsune or did something make him like that? If something made him like that what happened? If he was born like that, are there other Kitsune?

He was born a kitsune! There are others like him, but they're extremely rare and only really heard of in legends, so he's the only one we would actually see in this AU.

9. Can Tails still fly despite the greater number of tails?

Yes! He can fly without having to spin his tails now, too, but still does it out of habit.

10. What would happen if your Sonic were to be killed while all the Chaos Energy in his body has been neutralized? Would he find a different way to come back or would he actually die?

Sonic cannot truly die unless his soul is destroyed, which is nigh impossible as the forces of Chaos themselves forbid that from happening.

Neutralizing the Chaos Energy inside him would temporarily halt his regeneration, though, so he wouldn't be able to heal at all as long as the neutralization effect is active. Since that effect is temporary and his soul is (I assume) still intact, he will eventually come back.

Thanks for asking about my AU!! I love thinking abt him and The Horrors he's gone through <3

#asks #old man sonic au #au sonic smackdown #ask to tag #for some of the darker stuff touched upon here. dunno if it needs trigger warnings or not since i didn't go into too much detail. but yeah

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shadamyheadcanons · 1 year

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SPOILERS FOR THE MURDER OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 🛑 https://twitter.com/krack932/status/1641923206486294530?s=46&t=tC2LddLuwO9pUUd3TlNgIg

Guess it’s time I tackled this, huh? I’m late to the party!

Short answer: I love the game AND the Shadow/Amy interactions! They’re wonderful! I’ll be putting spoilers under the cut. If you haven’t played it yet, I’d definitely recommend it. Great art, great story, fun gameplay. It’s free on Steam and it’ll probably only take you a few hours, so there’s nothing to lose!

I never would have thought to make a Sonic murder mystery game, but it fits super well. The characters are really well-written. It’s been a long time since I played a Sonic game and felt everyone was portrayed well. I wasn’t even fully satisfied with Frontiers in that regard tbh, but this game nailed all of them. It helps that with Sonic being, uh...preoccupied, we get to see side characters interacting with each other for once. Blaze conspiring with Rouge? Yes, please! Knuckles throwing a fit when he loses to Vector in a video game? Wonderful!

But Shadamy is the standout. I couldn’t be happier with how these two were handled! This is exactly the kind of Shadow/Amy interaction I’ve waited years for, and I know I’m not alone in that. Some people have started shipping them because of this game!

I think what I like most about it is that this is the exact pattern I often use when I write them falling in love. He does something really sweet and dedicated for her...

...makes bad excuses to try and downplay it...

(PFFT WHAT SOCIAL STATUS??? Even Tails is laughing)

He remembers something about Amy and goes to the trouble of doing something nice for her even if he has to embarrass himself in the process, something he wouldn’t be caught dead doing for anyone else...

She sees right through his excuses because she knows how sweet he is. She literally stutters and blushes. Just look how smitten she is!

...and then she asks him out because she wants to spend more time with him.

Sure, she’s probably thinking of it platonically, but it’s worth noting that this is the exact approach she’s taken to try to get dates in the past.

Wallpaper posted on Sonic Channel 2/22/21. Art by Yuji Uekawa

If she wants to spend time with a love interest someone, she’ll make it happen, regardless of their hesitation.

And he agrees. He hesitates either because it’s a boy band or maybe because concerts aren’t his thing, but he says yes because it’s her. The proof is right there: he goes through all this for her specifically. He dresses up in a glorified Starbucks outfit--let’s be real, we were all thinking it--joins in for a silly game, something that’s been out of character for him since the beginning...

and agrees to go to a party despite repeatedly rejecting invitations to such things in the past. Rouge makes it clear that’s the norm:

And even when he shows up to Sonic’s birthday, he’s late and ignores everyone, including Sonic himself:

But he goes to Amy’s birthday, makes sure to get her a thoughtful gift, and even socializes with the others. He’s in a pretty good mood, even showing an unusual amount of patience while she’s accusing him.

He doesn’t snap back at her or anything the way he normally would with others. How many people could get away with interrupting Shadow the hedgehog without getting an earful? He really is more patient with her than he is with anyone else.

Shadow’s a blunt, stubborn guy, and he won’t agree to something if he doesn’t want to. But he’ll go to a crowded boy band concert because Amy’s just worth it to him. Different rules for Amy. And if he keeps it up, she’s bound to notice.

That’s how I write them, at least, and now it’s in a semi-official Sonic game, too. I couldn’t be happier. <3 Hopefully Sega will see the positive response and put these two together more often; people really loved this, regardless of who they ship. Platonic or otherwise, I’d love to see more.

Either way, rest assured that this interaction will be finding its way into headcanons here and there from now on. And I may or may not have a proper story in the works for it 👀

Oh, and the kicker?

Tails totally ships it. He didn’t have to wink like that, but he sees what’s up. He’s a clever kid. That’s another point for the “Tails is on Team Amy” trend, and more fuel for the Everyone Ships Shadamy tag.

#Shadamy #Shadow the Hedgehog #Amy Rose #Sonic the Hedgehog #not a headcanon #ask #anonymous #plus another anonymous #and another one too #i'm always flattered whenever people want to hear my opinion on this stuff #sorry i left you three hanging! i know it's been a bit #Everyone Ships Shadamy #the murder of sonic the hedgehog

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marinaiguess · 2 years

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the vocal themes from frontiers describe a specific theme on their lyrics and it gradually turns from fear to acceptance (i suppose) i’ll be talking abt these (in the order of their “appearance” in game): i’m here, undefeatable, break through it all, find your flame, vandalize.

(also spoilers)

i’m here is a lot about doubting and reassurance. it starts with sonic “leaving the life he knew before” “finding the truth of who he’s meant to become”, revealing a degree of uncertainty. despite the fact sonic has always moved forward, “to new horizons”, he “fights this fear, with his life”, fights the fear of losing his friends. but in the next pre-chorus, it seems like he can hear his friends (“don’t be afraid, i will be with you”) who are trying to reassure him and give him the strength he needs to keep on fighting. in the end, he still moves forward, but now he’s more assured as “the way ahead’s becoming clear.”

undefeatable is about a strong sense of confidence that overshadows the real emotions sonic is feeling (a topic touched by the next song as well). that’s mostly fear. sonic seems to be handling everything well so far, even saying that “think im on 11 but im on a 9, guess u dont really know me” which shows he really believes he is “undefeatable” and that makes sense, especially since he is in his super form for the first time since the beginning of their adventure and is certain the chaos emeralds will help him complete his mission (he doesnt know yet that the emeralds disperse after visiting a different island). however, he keeps repeating “face your fear” and it serves as a reminder to himself that he cant avoid this emotion. “i used to never know/this feeling’s just a ghost” is him trying to persuade himself that this fear is momentary and that he has to focus on the battle to keep moving forward.

break through it all is about accepting and overcoming the fear. sonic still tries to convince himself to keep the fight going (“dont look down”) but at the same time he’s calling out to his enemy (”show yourself”). that’s when he’s found most of his friends but has yet to find tails. he wants to end this and quickly, so he doesnt wait for the enemy to appear on its own. now he knows that he “cant hide from what he feels”, he’s still afraid but more determined (”no more compromise, this is do or die”) and ready to risk it all. half of the chorus is sonic’s friends hyping him up, telling him that he “wont fade out, cuz the fire in him never dies” and that he shouldnt stop cuz they have a mission. sonic has been listening to them and he knows they have been with him this whole time, so he accepts that they will be okay cuz they are fighting alongside him (”we wont stop until the battle’s won”) and until the end of the song, sonic talks on behalf of all of them.

find your flame is about the ultimate disappearance of that fear. theres no fear overshadowing what he has to do (”take a seat, im on a mission”) and he’s carrying his friends with him in this one (”we wont back down”). sonic has surpassed his frontiers (”im here to go beyond my limit”), he is at the worst state possible (cybercorrpution) and is eager to end the fight, even more now that hes reunited with his little bro. (”i’ve been waiting for my moment to strike”). he has no inhibitions, he’s not restraining himself, he’s not feigning confidence but he is filled with it (all the pre-chorus indicates that).

now, heres an interesting take (which ofc may be completely wrong but oh well): “will the whole world know your name/ when we dance with destiny?” is a line asked by sage, trying to understand sonic. “im never gonna stop believing” is tails’ response as he tries to prevent sonic from doubting himself. he is the only one who has been with sonic for the longest time, the only one who “has been there and has seen it”, sonic’s willpower and strength, so he reminds him that “he’ll find his flame” (it connects with the conversation sage and tails had regarding sonic’s abilities). and now, sonic is sure that this is “the end of the show” and that he’ll find his flame thanks to his friends.

vandalize is about the aftermath. sonic was betrayed (”you promised to help me rebuild/you caught me off guard”) he is in pain. this whole adventure has left a mark, it has vandalized his heart. from losing his friends, to finding them, to not being able to save them, to having to find the chaos emeralds again and again while fighting the cyber corruption and then getting betrayed but also barely managing to make it out in one piece yet not being able to save everyone (rip sage). there’s no fear. just determination, certainty. and pain. even when the physical pain stops, the emotional damage (LOL) has been dealt. no matter what happens next, this adventure has left a mark on sonic.

#thats all i guess #(Not me singing bring you back while writing this down)#im bored to edit this further so #here you go people #what do yall think #sonic frontiers spoilers #sonic frontiers #sth #sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower #sonic and tails #sage the ai #im here #undefeatable #break through it all #find your flame #vandalize

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atwas-creations · 2 years

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Rose Petals

Warning: Sonic Frontiers spoilers.

“Hey, Amy,” Sonic said as he approached her. Amy had her bag in her hand, and she was just locking the front door of her house. “You all set to go?”

Amy looked down at her bag. “Yes, I am.” She sighed sadly. “I guess this is good-bye for now.”

Sonic held out a hand. “Take care, Amy. I’ll check in on Cream and Big for you from time to time.”

“I appreciate that,” Amy said as she shook his hand. “Cream and Cheese agreed to take care of my flowers while I’m gone.”

Sonic nodded. “Great. Oh, by the way, you did let Sticks know you’re coming, right? Cuz you know how she gets when people drop in unexpectedly.”

Amy chuckled. “Yes, I let her know. Good thing Tails was able to convince her to at least get an email account. I can’t wait to catch up with her, really, see how things are going back on Seaside Island.”

“You’re sure you wanna do this?” asked Sonic. “I’m not even sure what it is you plan to do.”

“I’m not sure, either,” Amy said. “But I made up my mind on Kronos Island. I just know that this world needs love, and I want to show people what love really is. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Mmm…” Sonic shook his head. “Not really. Freedom, I get. Love… eh, that’s more your thing.”

“Hmm…” Amy regarded him thoughtfully. “Sonic… um…” She took a breath. “Look, I- I know I was kinda weird when I first met you…”

Sonic raised an eyebrow. “‘Kinda’?”

Amy frowned. “I’m trying to say something, here.”

Sonic raised his hands defensively. “Okay, okay. Go ahead.”

Amy continued, “I want to thank you for… for sticking with me through all that… weirdness. You’ve helped me to grow up a lot, and your kindness and friendship have shaped who I am in ways I can’t even begin to express. I…” She closed her eyes and sighed again. “Look, my feelings for you, they never changed. I don’t know if they ever will. But I’ve been able to accept that our relationship… is what it is. Being with you has taught me that love isn’t just romance. It’s more than that.”

When she paused, apparently expecting Sonic to say something, he just shrugged and said, “Well, I can’t say that I understand what you mean. Like I said, ‘love’ really isn’t my thing.”

“I think you do understand,” Amy said. “You just don’t call it ‘love.’ Sonic… do you know why I’ve always been so crazy about you, so…” She chuckled. “So desperate, at times, to be by your side?”

Sonic crossed his arms behind his head and gave her a cocky grin. “Sure, I can think of lots of reasons: my good looks, my athletic build, my speed, my sharp wit, my winning smile-”

“Your heart, Sonic,” Amy cut in.

Sonic just looked at her, brows furrowed, not understanding.

Amy laughed. She put her suitcase down and put her hands on her hips. “You really don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? For all your self-assured, arrogant conceit-”

“Hey!”

“-you don’t see in yourself what the rest of us do. Sonic, you are the most loving, kind, compassionate person I have ever met. You give of yourself freely, every day. You would do anything for anyone, just because they asked, and you’re always the first to notice whenever someone needs something, whether it’s food, protection, or just a kind word. You really are a hero, Sonic. And maybe the best thing about you is, however conceited you may be, you often don’t even think of yourself as a hero. You know you are one, but you don’t let it go to your head. It’s not something you are, it’s something you do. You may not be good at telling people how much you care, but you show it every day. Love isn’t just a word to you- it’s an action.”

“Uh…” Sonic scratched behind his ear. He looked embarrassed. “Gee, Amy, I… I really don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Amy said as she picked her suitcase back up. “Just keep being who you are.”

“Hey, that’s what I’m best at,” Sonic said.

“And that’s what makes you so cool,” Amy said. She started to leave, but she noticed Sonic wasn’t looking at her. He was focused on a spot on the ground, a hand on one hip, brows furrowed.

Amy leaned in quickly and pecked his cheek.

Sonic looked up, startled.

“Just for luck,” Amy said, although she was blushing just a little. “Take care, Sonic. I hope to be able to see you again soon.”

Sonic nodded. “Yeah. Y-you, too.”

He watched her leave, unconsciously putting a hand up to the warm spot on his face where she had touched him, and surprised to find himself hoping she wouldn’t be gone too long.

#sonic the hedgehog #amy rose #sonic frontiers #sonamy #fluff

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ybetzarts · 5 months

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random question, what draws you to knuckles as a character? do you have a favourite version of him?

Okok...bear with me, I have to start from the beginning..

I first encountered Knuckles during the time when he was mostly portrayed as, as they described him, a character merely for comedic relief. I watched the boom series back in 2015 and so my first impression of him was that he was an all-brawn-no-brain kinda guy. I found him funny, i guess...i had no clue back then. To explain why i didnt bother to do any research, here are some screenshots of my response on IG...(see below the break)

I was a shallow "fan". I find the sonic casts' design interesting and fun to look at. At that time, that was enough...

1. What drew me into Knuckles then?

I'll get into that, but first...The 2nd movie...The only reason i gave Sonic(by Sonic i meant the whole franchise) a chance was because i saw how Knuckles was portrayed in the 2nd Sonic movie. Very different from what i knew of him at that time.

I began researching about him, after watching the movies. There was something. Yea, i was on an info hunt of just about the guy for months! Along the way tho, i also discovered a ton of things about Sonic, the cast, etc. BUT, i was mostly so eager to know about Knuckles. Then man! There was so much to know about the guy...He wasnt just that all-brawn-no-brain type of guy. Those character analysis videos of Knuckles explained a lot of things about him. He's the most interesting of the cast(for me)---his personality(Most of all), his backstory, his sacred duty, being the last of the echidnas, angel island as his home, what's left of his kind(relics, tech, architecture, art, etc.), so much to unpack...and YET there were almost nothing said about them??? The mysteries about the guy continues. Lots of angles to look into his character.

Hmm... I also realized that there were many ways to interpret(?) Knuckles. The tons of fanfiction you can make about the guy, tons of ways to do headcanons about him---one can look at him through his duty as a guardian, through him being a warrior, through his ancestors--and then recently in Frontiers--through the hidden and long lost and forgotten structures within angel island, also, through the M.E. and through the power that resides in the M.E. Am I making sense even???

[I should say that i liked a lot of these things first, before i even liked Knuckles for his design LOL (gawsh, those times when i struggled drawing the dude. I was so eager to learn how to draw him. Usually i would have given up, but surprisingly i didnt), and the "why did he have to be RED" XDD I didnt like red, until Knuckles...] His personality drew me in at first, then came all of these things...

About his personality/character...I can really relate to that. I also happen to like characters who are tough on the outside and are good (not exactly gentle) in the inside LOL. Knuckles looks so tough, immovable as a mountain, but deep down, he's carrying a lot. Rarely or almost never opening up. I can only imagine him as he got older, him thinking like

"No one will be left to take care of the island after I'm gone anyway...so why should i even bother? I could be doing something else, I could be anywhere, I could make use of what time ive been given, of what time i have left."

*proceeds to chuck them thoughts away* Then just like that, back to guarding duty again, still feeling loyal and determined to fulfill his role, and to who knows until when...

For that, Knuckles is the only fictional character that ive come to genuinely like and become interested in. So much so that i got out of my demotivated-uninspired-artist-prison and began drawing again, and for the fun of it!🌟💥

2. As for my favorite version of him?

My gosh! um, currently Renegade, I suppose??? Man, this is hard gah! Theres always something to like about every version of Knuckles. The Knuckles version in my head, the one i created after consuming a ton of Knuckles info, yea i also like that version LOL XDD🌟

#knuckles the echidna #asks #ybetzartstalks #my fingers hurt now #i figured this was gonna be long so i didnt draw anything this time HNGGGG #am feeling really sleepy now so #pls forgive me if i ever made yall confused ack

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sage-nebula · 2 years

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Game Review — Sonic Frontiers

Well, it's been a hot minute since I've done one of these, hasn't it? In fact, this is the first review I've written this year. The truth is, for the other games I've played this year I kind of lost steam partway through writing the reviews, and since so few people read my reviews anyway I figured there wasn't much of a point. But I know that at least a couple people have been waiting for my opinion on this game, and since I've gained quite a few new followers thanks to my Sonic posting, I figure I owe it to Frontiers to give it a proper review.

Overall Score: 8/10

When it was first announced that Ian Flynn was going to be writing the script for Sonic Frontiers, I was super excited. It’s not a secret to anyone who follows me that I really enjoy the IDW Sonic comics, even if I don’t always love every new character or plot beat, so I had full confidence that if he was at the helm of Frontiers, then—at least on the story front—the game was going to deliver. And I’m happy to say, my confidence was rewarded. For more details, let’s head under the cut (and on my blog for prettier formatting).

The Pros:

— As mentioned in the above paragraph, Ian Flynn was put in charge of the English script for Frontiers, and while I know that he didn't have full control over the story (it was a collaboration between him and the writers on the Japanese side), his influence showed in a big way and it was fantastic. Every single character was on point. Sonic had a good balance between snarky, confident, and serious; Amy's compassion shone through and, though her story did touch heavily on her romantic feelings for Sonic, that's not what the main focus of her character was; Knuckles was allowed to be intelligent again, and his struggle between his duty and his feelings of loneliness really came through; and Tails was done so much justice after the absolute nonsense he was put through in Forces, showcasing not only his intelligence, but also his struggles with self-doubt, his love and worry for his brother, and his desire to grow up and out of his insecurities. Ian's influence really shone through with the writing for Tails; without veering too far into spoilers, Tails himself uses the word "inconsistent" to describe his past exploits, which is the exact word Ian has used to describe Sega's handling of Tails in the past as well. Nonetheless, Tails was done justice in this game and I can't wait to see where future games take his character.

But of course, the core four aren't the only characters in this story. Eggman, for as few appearances as he had in the game, ended up really surprising me and touching my heart at the end. Again, I don't want to veer into spoilers here, but I never thought I would feel my heart ache for him, and it actually did in the end. And as for the new character who bears my name, Sage . . . I love her. Her character arc is stunning, and while there is one thing in particular they should have touched on with her but didn't for some reason, everything about her was handled marvelously. I couldn't be happier with what they did with my namesake, truly.

— Characters aside, the story itself was truly heartfelt and, honestly, something that I would expect from the current comics. While Sonic's central conflict was wrapped up very quickly with a moment that most would justifiably call cheesy, this is a Sonic game. Of course it's going to have cheese. You can't play a game with candy-colored anthropomorphic animals and not expect to get some cheese. Plus, I have a feeling that the reason everything wrapped up as quickly (and vaguely) as it did in that critical moment was due to crunch time, but I'll address that in a later section. Point is, the story was truly poignant, and is, in my opinion, the most beautiful Sonic game we've had since Adventure 2 in that regard. But I also haven't played every single game since Adventure 2, so take that with a grain of salt, I guess.

— The music was, of course, amazing. I feel that goes without saying, because Sonic games pretty much always have amazing music, but I'll say it anyway. All of the boss themes were hype as hell, even if I couldn't really hear the lyrics over all of the battle noises (I can always listen to the soundtrack later), but the music in the open world areas was really great, too. I will say that some of the cyber space levels had forgettable music (and I felt personally offended that a cyber space level that looked like it was based on City Escape didn't have some variation of the City Escape music, wtf), but overall the soundtrack is great, and the credits theme for the true ending made me weep actual tears. Again, spoilers, so I won't say which one. But I cried.

— The open world gameplay was really good for the most part (Chaos Island notwithstanding, more on that in a later section). When you were allowed to have full camera control and just sprint across the landscape, the controls worked really well. An open landscape is great for a game like Sonic, where you can sprint across the map in no time at all, making the lack of fast travel at the beginning of each island a non-issue. The 3D platforming segments were great as well; most of the issues I had with landing on rails came from my own clumsy playing (I have a tendency to panic jump when I really shouldn't) than any sort of actual issues with the controls, and there were tons of fun segments with springs and boost ramps and ziplines. The little island challenges were also fun, for the most part, and the fact that there were multiple times I had to look up a solution only to realize I was a dumb-dumb that forgot that cyloops were a thing again was on me, not the game design. So for the most part, the open world worked really well.

— The stat increase system (for speed, ring count, strength, and defense) was a neat little addition to the gameplay, and for me at least, leveling all the way up to 99 lasted the length of the story. (And this was with me cheesing a bit at the very end and just buying a bunch of kocos and seeds from Big so I would be buff enough to fight the final boss on Hard Mode.) I can say that I did notice an increase in speed as the game went on in 3D sections, and having more rings helped whenever I got hit (which happened a lot because I suck at dodging and block with Sonic's face). I can't say I noticed anything happening strength/defense wise, but maybe I would have noticed more difficulty if I'd neglected to level those up. Also, when visiting the Hermit Koco to increase your strength/defense, he just gathered all the seeds and increased both strength and defense all in one fell swoop, which made the process speedy and not a chore at all. (Yes, this is foreshadowing for something in a later section.)

— The combat was fun as well. There's a skill tree that you can use to unlock new abilities, and while I have some not-so-great things to say about that in a later section, I will say at least that it was nice to be able to fight in ways that weren't jumping and homing attacks. There are actual button combos you can use to attack with different moves, and honestly just mashing the attack button over and over won't get you anywhere very fast. You really do need to learn at least a few of the basic attacks in order to be able to do well, as well as parrying (which thankfully doesn't require timing and yes I did learn to parry for the bosses / enemies that required it, it's just not my go-to). Combat was something that Sonic Team could have slacked on for this game, but they didn't, and that was a nice surprise.

— For that matter, most of the Titan fights were sick. Sure, there were times when it felt a little cheap, or that first Titan fight where I forgot that parrying was even a thing in this game and died because of it. But, they really amped up the spectacle in the Titan fights with finishing cutscenes that could have been straight out of shounen anime, and it was awesome. Again, this is a Sonic game. We're here for cheese and spectacle. If you're not here for cheese and spectacle, then I have no idea what you're doing playing a game about an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog whose super form is what it is because the creators of the series looked at Dragonball and were like, "that looks cool, let's do that." The Titan fights have hype music and spectacle and intense gameplay. What more could you want?

— There are side conversations peppered through the islands that give you more time with Sonic's friends, and Sage. These moments aren't necessary, but I really appreciated them. Not only because I am a sucker for character interaction (I don't care half as much about lore as I do about characters talking to each other), but also because it really helps flesh out the character arcs and relationships even more, in addition to giving you a bit more information about what's going on with the islands. I know I just said that I don't care about lore nearly as much as I care about characters talking to each other, and I stand by that, but if you do care about lore then you really will want to do these side conversations, because they give you more information on the lore of the islands as well. Additionally, these side conversations are not hard to find; they are marked with an icon of the character's face on the map, and you can see their little digital self standing out on the field, so it's easy to track them down and initiate them if you want to.

The Neutrals:

— The 3D cyber space levels were fine. That's the nicest thing that I can say about them. They were short enough that they didn't take up too much time, the red star ring locations were in relatively sensible locations for most of them, and they played okay. I will say that it was disappointing how few of Sonic's past adventures the cyber space levels pulled from (if I never have to see Chemical Plant Zone again it will be too fucking soon), but again, they were a relatively inoffensive part of the game overall and they passed quickly enough that it's not like too much time is spent on them, in comparison to how much time is spent in the overworld.

— The length of the game is not the best. As anyone who has read my past reviews knows, I like to get one hour of gameplay per dollar spent on the game. I paid $60 for Frontiers, and got almost 40 hours of gameplay from it. This is being generous, because there were numerous times when I left it sitting idle while I got distracted doing other things (I have ADHD, let me live). Still, having a twenty hours-to-dollars discrepancy isn't too horrible, and it's definitely better than the 5 hours I got out of Sonic Forces after spending $40 on that, so it can go here instead of in the cons section.

— Frontiers has a True Ending, which is only accessible if you beat the final boss on Hard mode. This is in the neutrals section because you can play the entire game on Easy or Normal if you want to, so long as you change the difficulty to Hard right before the final boss, which is a good thing. However, what's not great is that there's nothing in the game (to my knowledge) telling you that you need to do this, and that you haven't seen the True Ending if you haven't done it. The closest I think there is is that if you try to change the difficulty during the fight against Supreme, I hear that a popup appears telling you that the boss fight that would come after Supreme will be skipped. Admittedly, I'm not positive on that though. I only knew about the True Ending thanks to some friends who beat the game before me, otherwise I probably would have missed it since I was playing on Normal due to the time crunch I had with Pokémon coming out on Friday. The True Ending is very good though, so if you can swing it, I would recommend fighting Supreme on Hard. Trust, it's not actually hard. (And neither is the final final boss; I got it on my second try.)

— Speaking of which, the final final boss was . . . interesting? To say the least, in terms of gameplay. It wasn't traditional Sonic gameplay at all, but was instead a bullet hell battle. To be fair this is not completely out of left-field for Frontiers; they give you a few bullet hell stages before this to prep you for how it's going to go down. But it was still a bit odd for a final final boss in a Sonic game to be bullet hell. Additionally, I couldn't hear half of what the boss was saying during the fight, which was a bit disappointing since I like to hear actual dialogue. Nonetheless, I'm glad I did it; the True Ending was worth it, and maybe it just felt easy to me because I've played Undertale and Deltarune (and the secret bosses in both chapters of Deltarune) so bullet hell is old hat to me now. (But seriously, this was much easier than Jevil or Snowgrave Spamton.)

— Without going into spoiler reasons as to why, Sonic's physical condition deteriorates as the story progresses. This is shown by his idle poses, as well as in certain cutscenes. However, although Sonic's physical condition is deteriorating, the gameplay doesn't change at all. Sonic can still run, boost, and fight just as well when he's in the worst shape of the game as he could at the very start. I understand why this is; hampering the movement of the player's character, especially in a game series that is all about movement, is risky business. Even if you're doing it for storytelling purposes, it can come across very badly to the audience. Although Sonic Team is known for taking some risks (they change up gameplay on a whim and clearly don't care too much about what fans think, otherwise we'd have a Chao Garden game by now), I doubt they'd want to go so far as to make it so that Sonic could only walk or barely fight during pivotal moments of the game. So I understand why it is the way it is, but the gameplay and story segregation here still pulled me out of the story a little bit, whereas I would have felt what Sonic was going through much more strongly if it became harder to move as him as well.

— There's a skill tree in this game, which I touched upon briefly above by mentioning that there are different attacks that Sonic can learn as the game progresses, and that it really behooves the player to learn because just spamming the attack button won't get you very far against the guardians and especially not the Titans. However, what's disappointing about the skill tree is that it is very small. You accumulate skill points pretty quickly, and I had the skill tree completely mapped out by the time I was halfway through the third island. For reference, there are five islands in this game. So ultimately, I ended up collecting skill points for literally no reason, which was pretty disappointing. It was nice to have a skill tree, but having a more robust one would have felt more rewarding, and also would have made the player have to think about which skills they wanted to unlock as well.

— It's not a huge deal, so I won't put it under cons, but having a little cutscene play every single time you reach maximum rings got really old after a while. There's a similar little flash of Sonic's eyes every single time he reels something in while fishing, and both of these things just felt like padding at best (for the fishing) and really intrusive on the gameplay at worst (the full ring count). Similarly, the reset for enemies and items in this game comes in the form of shooting star nights, which is really cool at first! It fits with the name of the Starfall Islands, is very colorful and pretty, and overall is a much more pleasant experience than Breath of the Wild's Blood Moon. However, the little slot machine that pops up on the screen is intrusive and makes it hard to see what you're doing, which is really frustrating when you're in the middle of things when the shooting stars hit. So by the second time this event happened, I was over it.

The Cons:

— The 2D gameplay in this game is atrocious. I literally don't know what happened; I was just playing Generations a week before this game came out, and the 2D levels in that game—which, remember, came out something like ten years ago—were fine. In Classic Sonic's levels in Generations, when you press right on the control stick, he runs. Just right out the gate. All you have to do is press right. Similarly, in other recent games such as Sonic Mania, the characters have no problem running when you press right on the control stick. You press right, they run. Sometimes this means you run into badniks or spikes or whatever, but hey! That's how you learn. Live and learn. We had a whole song about this in Sonic Adventure 2.

But for some reason that I cannot for the life of me understand, this is not the case in Frontiers. I don't know if it's just an issue with the Switch version or what, but for some reason, I could jam right on the control stick as hard as I could on the Switch version, and in the 2D areas (both cyberspace and overworld, which was basically all of Chaos Island), Sonic would just walk. He walked. You could almost say it was gameplay and story integration, except this also happened in the 2D cyberspace levels that came before his condition got really bad. I had to literally boost to get him to run at base speed when comparing it to the gameplay of the 3D segments. Worse still is that the camera is very zoomed out in the 2D segments, which makes spikes and other traps difficult to see. The 2D segments felt like honest to god torture in this game given how great the 3D segments were. At least if Sonic could run normally in the 2D segments it wouldn't be so bad, especially since I've played side-scrolling Sonic more than I've played 3D Sonic so, honestly, I'm pretty confident in my side-scrolling Sonic skills. Or hell, when you first boot up the game you're asked whether you want to play in Action Mode or Speed Mode; if he walked in Action Mode I'd understand, but I chose Speed Mode, so he should run. And he does, in the 3D areas! Just not in the 2D areas without really forcing it with boost. It's a nightmare. I don't know what went wrong here, but something sure did, because god fucking christ it was awful.

(And again, most of the third island—Chaos Island—is 2D segments, which made it hell to play through. If not for the fact that the third island hosts the best character, I'm not sure I would have made it through.)

— Earlier I mentioned that you can boost Sonic's stats in this game. I also mentioned that increasing strength and defense, which happens with Hermit Koco, was very quick and easy. Unfortunately, this is not the case for increasing speed and ring count, which happens with Elder Koco. To be fair, Elder Koco takes all of the koco you have collected in one fell swoop. However, you then have to manually choose whether you want to upgrade speed or rings. You have to choose this each time for every single level upgrade you have available to you, which is based on how many koco you brought back, and there's no in-game way of knowing exactly how many koco it takes per level boost of either speed or ring count. You can't move your cursor as soon as the option appears to choose each one, because although the words are on the screen, the menu isn't fully loaded yet. So you have to slowly, very slowly, click through to increase speed or ring count over, and over, and over again. If you wait a while to visit Elder Koco (due to not being in an area where he is for a while, for instance), you could be doing this for ages. I understand not wanting to lock players into spending all their koco on one or the other right away, but there are a few ways that Sega could have sped this process up:

Perhaps make it so that both speed and ring count are increased at the same time, a la strength and defense, without making the player choose.

At LEAST make it so that if you max out one stat, you can just bulk upgrade the remaining one. I maxed out speed before ring count, but I still had to manually select ring count for every subsequent level increase for some ungodly reason.

Perhaps let the player choose which they want to upgrade, and then they can choose how many levels they want to upgrade, in accordance with how many koco they have. This way if they have enough koco for 8 upgrades, they can choose to split 4 and 4 if they want.

In a game that's all about speed, AND one in which we have another stat increasing character who doesn't take nearly so long to go through the process, it feels bonkers bananas that it takes so long to upgrade things with Elder Koco. For someone with ADHD like me, it felt honestly torturous to have to sit there and slowly click through the menus to upgrade the levels one at a time. I felt like I was dealing with one of the sloth DMV employees in Zootopia. It was awful.

—This is a really minor thing comparatively, but it's related, so: the koco are annoying af. I don't find their incoherent gibberish to be cute (and actually . . . mocked them during cutscenes where one of the koco would babble on for a while), and more to the point, it bugged me how, when standing idle, the koco would materialize around Sonic and just start babbling. The koroks in Breath of the Wild were annoying too, but at least once you found them they poofed away and didn't continue to bother you every time you set the controller down for a second. The koco in this game actually made me mute my TV a couple times when I needed to do something but didn't want to shut the game off, because as nice as the background music was, I couldn't enjoy it with the koco babble. Thematically, the koco are beautiful. Audibly, I want them to shut up forever. Again, minor quibble, but still a complaint.

— One thing I was really excited about with regards to this game going into it is that it is chock-full of references to Sonic's past adventures, friends, and even other media (such as a shout-out to Tangle from the IDW comics). However, most regrettably, these shout-outs are extremely hard to trigger, to the tune of I didn't get a single one in my entire 40 hours of playing. The closest I got was two idle lines where Sonic talks to Amy and Knuckles toward the very end of the game, but that's it. There's been talk online about what it takes to trigger them, and some say you have to stand in one place for at least 10 minutes, which a.) who does that, and b.) actually I did that while waiting for nightfall (more on that in a second) and it still didn't help. So I don't know. I think it's really cool that there was fanservice, but the point of fanservice is to service the fans and I was a fan who was not serviced. So overall, I came away from the game feeling a little bitter about it. (And a little extra salty that Amy mentions an allegedly non-canon character in the end credits scene, but couldn't mention an allegedly non-games canon character from a non-games Sonic media I actually like in that scene . . . this is vague because of spoilers, but I'm being petty in this parenthetical, so maybe being vague is okay too.)

— While this is also not a huge deal, I think that this game would have benefited greatly from having a way to change the time from day to night, a la Breath of the Wild's campfires. The reason for this is because there are certain island challenges that can only be done at night. These aren't marked on the map (or at least the nighttime challenges I found weren't, but I also had glitch issues on the third island that prevented me from completing the map on that island so who knows), and if you happen across them during the day your only options are either to a.) stand there like a doofus and wait, or b.) mark it with a beacon and the run around while you wait. Since you can't set multiple beacons (another gripe in and of itself), your best option is to just stand there like a doofus, which can take a really long time (much longer than ten minutes, and yet I still didn't get any character references! yes I'm bitter). There aren't too many nighttime specific challenges so, again, it's not a super huge deal, but it's still something that I think a little developer foresight could have prevented. But alas, that brings us to the final point in this section . . .

— It's really obvious that this game experienced crunch time. I can't pretend to speak for what goes on at Sega, but it's really obvious that the last part of the game was rushed. Evidence of this includes:

The fourth and fifth islands are basically the exact same, landscape wise, as the first island.

Sonic's condition being cleaned up in a finger snap. I don't mind the cheesy aspect of how it happened, because again, this is a Sonic game. But the speed at which it happened, along with the vague handwave of how it happened, speaks to me that they just didn't have time in the game to spend on it and so they rushed it along to keep the player moving.

A lot of the later guardians are just slightly upgraded versions of previous guardians. This is especially noticeable on the final island, wherein we get two "new versions" of the tower guardian, only the only thing different is their coloration and their name. Like what was even the point of that, besides being able to re-use assets like they did by making the fourth and fifth islands the same as the first island.

Sage's memory tokens are the exact same memory tokens used for Amy. While you could claim that this is because she's thematically motivated by the same thing, it still feels . . . not lazy, but like maybe they just didn't have time to design and program in separate memory tokens for her. Something like a floppy desk (save icon for younger players) would have worked a lot better for her.

And so on and so forth. Again, this doesn't make the game bad, not by a long shot. But you can tell that they were rushing toward the end of development, and I wish they hadn't. They could have delayed the game by another few months, or even another year, and it would have been fine. I've waited years and years for Zelda games before; I'd be willing to do the same for Sonic games. It's OK to delay games to make them perfect and avoid putting your devs through crunch. It really is more than okay.

With all of that said, though, as I said at the top of this review, this game is an easy 8/10 and very, very good. While the cons might seem long, that's just because I'm a verbose person. Overall, there's much more to love about this game than there is to dislike about it. This is easily the best modern Sonic game we've had in a long time, and I hope that Sonic Team takes note of the positive reception, and keeps Ian Flynn on to write the next game, too.

#sonic frontiers #2022 game reviews #i kept this as spoiler free as i could #but read the review at your own risk all the same #sth

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chromaji · 2 years

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alright, watched the 8 episodes of prime so far. I liked it! Like sure there’s a few things i didn’t like so much but overall? I’m pretty ready to see more!

Rambling under rm ⬇️

It just sucks that this was likely meant to be a weekly release, considering how certain episodes recap as if it’s been a little while, and how season 1 is actually 24 episodes split into 3 8-episode releases, but netflix being netflix… yeah. I heard something similar happened to one of the seasons of JJBA where everyone was disappointed because netflix’s scheduling ruined the hype & discussion behind each individual episode, & ruin what I’ve seen people call Jojo Fridays.

…Back to prime. After coming off of Frontiers, seeing Sonic act so bubbly and talkative is very… different. If anything I’d compare Prime Sonic’s attitude to Movie/Wachowski Sonic (keep in mind i dont know every damn iteration/canon of sonic so i’m just basing my comparison off the sonic’s i know)

If there’s one thing I really don’t get about Prime’s who setup though, its this whole “sonic takes his friends for granted” thing. Cause I don’t even really… see that? Idk, Sonic clearly cares for everyone and recognizes their talents, shown mostly in Neo Yolk (like him hyping Nine and his technology up, and the way he introduced everyone to each other in the egg council’s building), he’s just a little more… impulsive, I’d say? And probably doesn’t show his care for others in the conventional way (in his main world).

But even with that impulsiveness, he’s the type to get things done & be reliable, going by how Tails reassured the team that Sonic’ll be there even if he’s running a little late… in the end HE WAS GETTING CHASED DOWN & CONCUSSED BY SHADOW IT AINT HIS FAULTTT

ALSO SPEAKIN OF SHADOW. He wasn’t there much in the first 8 episodes, but I like what we did see. I do hope there’s more of him after the end of episode 8 though, because now him and Sonic are in the same place, and I doubt Sonic’s gonna leave Shadow in that void… right?

Anyway, shadow’s got that business-first attitude, doesn’t say much to get his point across, but still has his moments of concern and isn’t just there to insult and fight Sonic like in boom… Well, no, the fights are one thing. Whenever he’s tangible in prime, most of his interactions so far have been him swinging at sonic.

Shadow doesn’t wanna fight Sonic in this situation just because, but he probably feels it’s the best choice to get Sonic to listen considering Sonic won’t stop for 5 seconds…

…Well. I’m assuming. After all, Shadow & Sonic fighting seems to be a regular occurrence judging by what sonic says to those flickies (something like “i know, we’re fighting again”). That’s a little worrying now that I think about it. But Sonic does call him his rival, so i’d guess there’s not bad blood in these fights? They probably just disrupt the flickies a lot, given how powerful they both are.

Anyway after that, Shadow tries to (vaguely) instruct Sonic whenever he can through the void, and when that doesn’t work, well… the end of episode 8 happens.

Their home is apparently destroyed, Shadow has been trapped in the void for who knows how long (time seems to work differently in shatterverses, so who knows how time works in the void), and here comes Sonic floating in the void after everything. Shadow wants to bite his head off by now.

Anyway, I know Prime Sonic must be suffering from 27 concussions. Hope the final episode is him going to a hospital bc I know his brain is fucking broken 🫡🫡

…

They’re air shoes

#i’ll probably keep making little edits to this post as i think abt the episodes more bshjgh #sonic prime #sonic prime spoilers

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pumpkinwastaken · 2 years

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Beau's 2022 awards!

*big cheering and screeching from the bees in the audience* Welcome welcome every! pls. pls stop ouch my ears AAAAAAAAA Okay okay welcome to my yearly award show that i started this year on tumblr! I'm keeping it short n sweet like my honey.

(that was a lie. this is a long post) Best movie of 2022! and the nominees are! -Sonic 2 -Bullet train -thor: love and thunder -knifes out: glass onion And the winner of best movie (in my opinion) of 2022 is...... Bullet train! woooooo! okay so it was really really close with the second sonic movie because as you probably know i adore sonic! but damn, bullet train really outdid itself for me. it was funny, thrilling and very well made! And for the fact ive watched it more than both sonic movies makes it my fav movie of the year! Okay so next up. game of the year! -Sonic frontiers -elden ring -Total war: warhammer 3 -Super lesbian animal RPG This was a spicy one. mostly between total war and sonic frontiers. But in the end i do have to choose sonic! I was hyped for both these games but sonic delivered while warhammer had me wait for months and im still waiting on my blood dlc (and if it has been released. oops guess i missed it) As most people prolly already said is that sonic frontiers does has its flaws but im just here looking at what I find the most enjoyable. and when it comes to gameplay and the sick ass soundtrack sonic frontiers took the lead! I do want to say as a honerable mention that SLARPG couldve beaten sonic but ive not had the time yet to finish it. but from what ive played so far its been really fun and i defo recommend it! And now on to the final category! Music! Ive listened to a looooot of music this year. and while the other sections had the rule of only having media released in 2022 for music i just do who i found the most fun to listen to this year! and my nominees are. -Red Vox -McBaise -Paradis -Pond Last year McBaise won really really hard. the song waterslide really helped me through the starting phases of taking anti depressants. This year however i think most of the time that ive listened to actual albums its mostly been from Red Vox! And thats why i say they are my pick for 2022! Recommend listening to the visions album which was released this year! its really good! And i think thats it for now! I do want to give one more award tho. If youve read till this point. first off. Thank you! <3 secondly. tell me ur fav of the years in games, movies and music! If you do i give you the bee award of 2022 which is basicly me being way too interested in what you have to say!

#beaus silly award thingy #year in review?#2022

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antirepurp · 2 years

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ok im ready to sit down and give some real thought to frontiers beyond nonsensical first-impression fueled gushing let’s go gamers

im not here to discuss the gameplay tbh like it’s good and fun and all that jazz but im more of a story kinda guy y’know. anyway.

reflecting on the story while watching the credits gave me sort of similar vibes to the first sonic movie in the sense that, all the building blocks and the ultimate vision were there, but the pacing was just a tad too fast to explore everything to their full potentials. the beginning felt definitely more fluent in that regard, thought this could also be just my experience in wanting to explore/get all the memories and THEN do all the plot shit in one go lol. i do think the ending needed a little something more special, i was hype to be in space but then it lasted a grand total of a single cutscene which was... not as cool as it could have been. same thing with sage, and my goodness i have a lot of thoughts about her

i seriously wish they had explored the whole corruption thing more! it seemed like such a huge deal but then it sorta. got thrown aside at the last moment. like okay fair how else would they have solved this issue without using resources to like idk create new playable characters for a single segment in which they save sonic or something? but i would’ve liked more, hm, spice in the whole situation. maybe the corruption overtakes sonic and, for a while, the story would force us to act against our friends. perhaps sage would be the one to stop sonic when he begins to threaten eggman’s safety, perhaps she is the one who gets shlorped into the corruption to stabilize sonic, perhaps the two of them are, for a brief moment in time, the same entity, and defeat the... whatever the final boss was together uh. it was some, corruption shit right? was that ever really addressed like the mechs and shit were ancients’ tech and there was another threat which was the fucking thanos planet or whatever?? and that planet was like possessing the mechs through cyber space?? did they actually address this or did i take too long fucking around to remember the plot anymore

regardless im overall fine with the story though! i can see why people would have issues with it, it’s far from perfect, but still a step-up from the 2010s sans sonic boom. i loved the interactions with amy and tails specifically, seeing the former become a more fleshed out character from what she’s used to and having a lot of things with tails addressed as well, especially forces. knuckles was a bit more history focused i feel but i think that fits him honestly

sage though... i was left craving more interactions with her and eggman, more direct ones anyway. the egg memos and the occasional cutscene was fine sure but i feel like something is still missing. either way im a sucker for sentient AI characters, i love how both her and sonic operate morally grey grounds for the most of the game and both see one another as enemies more or less (even if sonic is a lot friendlier towards her.) she’s a very interesting character and i do want to see more of her, im very much a fan of the implication that she might return in the future, and that it’s implied that frontiers leads up to a more cohesive narrative within sonic games from what we’ve had! i mean it would be a fucking shame to throw a character like that away, especially with the character development she brings out in eggman as well.

im not entirely sure how i feel about the ancients being aliens, it’s a bit... well, we had aliens before so did we really need more of them i guess? that said i am fucking obsessed that since the ancients are related to chaos, and chaos is related to chao, that chao are just heavily fucking mutated ancients that became babies it’s fucking hilarious to me akjsdhajds

the last thing that like actually bothers me is the goddamn mural that appeared in the sky and in the end on eggman’s machine, i severely wanted it addressed but we never really got that? i mean it has something to do with cyber space and the ancients but the hell is it? also i lowkey hate that every time i see it i read it as “up” but that’s just me aksjdhd

ah. i probably will have more thoughts later on after i’ve let my brain soup sit around for a while. but frontiers is good, pretty fucking good. and sticks confirmed please show her in a mainline game soon i miss her so much

#soda offers you a can #sonic #sonic frontiers spoilers #oh sage oh sage. im still just a bit mixed on you but damn did you warm up to me

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pichlive · 11 months

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So this is my thoughts on the Sonic Forces DLC– Long overdue due to some IRL business, but I'm ready to get this out so I can finally transition this blog onto the next game I wanna live blog. Be warned that spoilers are beyond the read more!

So… I have… a lot of mixed feelings on this DLC. As you might have been able to tell— I myself had so much trouble with this thing that I had to use mods just to get through it after Sonic's first trial! Which is sad to me– I had such high hopes for it, and I was having fun… until all the issues came trickling in. Which is a shame– because there's so many ways in which it's really great extra content… and then so many ways it kind of… falls flat in the end to me? Like they bent back to a lot of needless criticisms of the game to… in my opinion, kind of a version of the game I don't really like all that much.

To get it out of the way right here right now: The dlc is just insanely unfairly hard. And to clarify: if this was even fair at all, I wouldn't mind. Personally, I would have preferred this difficulty be reserved… for hard. And you know. Not for people playing on easy, let alone the kids doing that? My issue isn't even just that it's hard– it's that the difficulty is made for a system that won't accommodate it. This is NOT a system made for like, the level of intensity or precision that these challenges want you to do. It feels like a desperate attempt to appear more 'hardcore' and… kind of strangely rushed? For a free DLC? Like some of it doesn't feel… all that playtested.

Now, thankfully, much of the writing is still sosososoossoooooo solid to me. I did like that Sonic's friends took more precedence here– rescuing themselves and working to help Sonic, and god, Amy's VA just NAILED IT AND WENT OFF. But these character interactions without Sonic– as much as I love him– were a treat to see, and to see different dynamics was so refreshing. If this is a step into the water of possibly having more interactions like this… then I'm all for it. However, despite how much I liked all that… the writing near the end was… how do I put it. On one hand, I love Sonic and friends and Eggman and Sage all being involved in the final battle! On the other, as cool as Sonic going all out was, removing Sage vs The End feels more… generic?

Other than all that– It did feel like there were way more issues here than in the original game, at least I swear there were– but I will be transparent and say I have this game on an external drive so I will account for if that caused any errors at all. Regarding how Sonic's friends played: Amy's is the best, and actually feels like she was playtested/the best balanced? Knuckles was just frustrating for me, and Tails was fun but also extremely OP in ways that I'm not sure were intended? But the cyber levels of what I've played are fantastic. Way more objectives with extremely fair level design and BANGER tracks in all of them!

I dunno, it feels like on some level they got scared of people reacting negatively to how experimental the game was, how 'easy' it was– so they tried to appeal to an audience of people who wouldn't really even like this game anyway. It feels like a really awkward hybrid of both that uh– the 'hardcore' video game people aren't… going to even look Sonic Frontiers's way, or at least they likely won't like how they balanced the game and are more likely to install their own mods. And the regular audience is obviously not going to like having to slog through the sudden 'difficulty' shift either! So… unfortunately– while the writing is easily a 4/5 to me… this DLC gets a 1/5. I could only recommend it either to people who really think they can handle the 'challenge' or are patient for it– or for the most dedicated of sonic players. Or at the very least– just get to Sonic and at least play the cyber levels. Those seem pretty solid. I guess the other cutscenes if it gets to you too much you can watch on youtube but even then, imo, I liked the original ending better– even if again I did like the character interactions here.

#sonic forces the final horizon #Sonic forces review #sonic forces thoughts #Sonic forces the final horizon spoilers

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heroichedgehammer · 2 years

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Mod: If I may ask... What do you think of Frontier? Not sure if you played it or watched a walktrough or you decided to wait

WOO! Okay! I did play Sonic Frontiers, played it every time I had a moment for the past three/four days, and knocked it out last night. I have thoughts, and there are spoilers in them, so there's the read more below! Read on at your own peril!

TL;DR: Good change in direction, enjoyable game. Story has potential, but it's rushed. Sanded-down character interactions and lack of polish hold it back from being a homerun. Open world is extremely rewarding, but they don't always trust the player to pay attention to their surroundings or figure things out, so prepare to get repeated interruptions while exploring. Combat is easy, but feels satisfying to learn and play. If you're a Sonic fan and like open world games, pick it up. If you're not, wait for a sale.

(This is gonna be long. I used your ask as an excuse to ramble. Sorry!)

STORY

I mentioned in a previous post that this feels the most sincere that Sonic has been in a while—no memes, no forced quips, no ribbing the audience about how much they know how silly the concept of Sonic is. This, to me, feels like the beginning of a new direction for the games' tone (and if Evan Stanley's updates are anything to go by, I'm pretty sure I'm on point). Sincerity goes a long way for me even if the story is rough--I never thought that SA and SA2's stories were particularly good, but I love them because at the time, the affection and passion the creators had for their series was palpable. They thought Sonic was cool, and they wanted us to think Sonic was cool. Frontiers brought that back. It treats itself like it matters and I really like that. I felt emotional at more than one point during the game. I like how this felt like an epic; Sonic, to me, is a superhero story, and like classic superhero stories, its hopeful, confident, and big. This is the direction they took, and I like it.

But moment to moment, the word I would use is "rushed". For one, I feel like the characters don't get enough room to play off each other and show their wonderful personalities. We start a scene, they talk mostly about the plot for a bit, maybe make one small character-relevant joke, character beat or lore reference, and then shove along before the player gets bored. This is a shame; I wanted this to be the game I would point people to if I wanted to sell newcomers on these characters, but the lack of chemistry mixed with the more subtle portrayals leaves them all feeling kinda... watered down. Not terrible, definitely functional, but faint. Seriously; I wanted Knuckles and Sonic to rib each other a little more! I wanted Sonic to try to uplift Tails (I saw what you were trying to do, writers; do more of it! We can learn about the ruins later!)! I miss the more openly upbeat Amy! The bones are there. What happened?

Now, as for Sage; this is pretty on-brand for a Sonic story. The writers introduce a new character, a "heart" that, through their interactions with Sonic and co., start to change for the better throughout the story. In SA1, it was a spread around the cast for almost everyone who wasn't Sonic. In SA2, it was Shadow. In the story series, it was Shahra and Merlina. In this one, it's Sage. And I like the idea so much; I like not only the thread of this character, but her dynamic with Eggman. It's a side of him we don't see in the games. Which is why it was such a huge mistake to relegate most of it to optional memos acquired through an optional mini-game of all things. We absolutely needed to see these onscreen. Again, what happened, guys?

Saved the most... okay for last, I guess! I like the plot. Ancients are cool and interesting. Giving them a connection to Chaos was a good idea. I'd like more opportunities to care about them on a personal level. Again, they tried, but it's really rushed, so it didn't really happen for me. It's not that I was apathetic; it was functional! Just not punchy.

GAMEPLAY It's a video game, so even if the story was Shakespearian, the gameplay needs to be good. It was! I enjoyed it! The biggest problem is their lack of trust in the player's learning curve and their unwillingness to abandon the mechanics they picked up after 06.

It's a little over-tutorialized; instead of easing you into the mechanics in a natural and pleasing way, they slap you with a dozen dialogue boxes and pop-ups instead. I imagine a game where they tell the story and teach you the game at the same time a la BoTW, and I wish that was what we got.

The 2D sections in the open world should not have been there at all. Chaos Island was so painful in particular for me because every couple feet I'm enjoying running full-pelt through the wilderness only to get clotheslined by the 2.5 bat. Every time you make a classic Sonic fan play a 3D section, they're annoyed. Every time a 3D fan like me has to play a 2D section, I'm annoyed. Separate the gameplay styles! Free us all. We can play 2D Sonic later!

Speaking of that, why, oh why do they stop you to introduce the monsters literally every single time you run by them?! Can you imagine playing Breath of the Wild and getting interrupted while galloping around so they could play a cutscene with a big ugly title card reading 'LEGLESS GUARDIAN' every single time you find one?! Stop! Stop it! Let me be Sonic!

The action stages, which were the strength of the SA duo, Unleashed, Generations, etc. are unfortunately the weakest part; every time I had to go into one, I wanted it to be over. This Sonic is not mechanically built for these; he feels stiff here, when he feels great in the open world. I would've liked them to put the time they put into the former into refining the latter.

BUT--the open world. Oh, the open world is such a joy to move around in that I can still say this was a win. Being able to sprint full speed up and down hills wherever I wanted is the Sonic experience I've been dreaming of since I was five. I'm blasting alongside walls and ripping through the desert! Openly laughing as I blaze by enemies I know can't catch me! I felt like Sonic, and that was huge.

The combat does a great job with this, too; Sonic fights by overwhelming his opponents with lightning fast strikes. One of his attacks is literally running circles around them! That's incredibly cool and a really good design choice.

Boss fights are fun! I liked the open world bosses more than the end-stage bosses, but both were fun. A good cap on the new game style they're going for.

Aaand... that's it! That's all I got off the top of my head, good and bad, after my first playthrough. Overall, this feels like a game with the means, but not the time. If this does well enough, I'm hoping the next game will lean harder into this game's strengths. I'm happy to have this as the latest installment; I don't regret buying this, and if you're a Sonic fan, chances are good that you won't either.

#itsnotamy #sonic frontiers spoilers #this feels a lot like a 'first impressions' review for me so I often come back to edit it to better reflect my feelings at the time #not gonna edit out whole chunks but some parts just feel like me trying to be funny and falling on my face instead lol-

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sunkeepersolarpunkmusic · 6 years

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Free Solarpunk Essay for your thoughts

There’s not many essays and findings in academia that are given away to anyone without special access, so since I just got a 100 on my Environmental Ethics Reflection Essay, I’m posting it here for solarpunks it might benefit to think about these ethics considerations. (hit read more for essay)

My environmental ethic in recent years has grown to center around bolstering man’s integration with the environment. I see almost any given postulation regarding land use ethics to pat its own back while its front is on fire. In other words, people’s ideas about the proper use or stewardship of the environment always hit a wall when challenged in their authority. This wall is also invisible, so to speak, meaning where a moral or ordained boundary (or lack thereof) cannot be decided on without agreeance upon what humanity “should” be doing with the planet it is occupying. I have, in my infinite naiveté as a single human being with single brain, begun to embrace how “Capital I Integration” may be the most productive way forward in how man both heals and continue to utilize the environment for its inevitable “progress”—whether or not we can all agree it was ordained to make such progress.

Firstly discussed will be how the idea of integration relates to the documentary film In Light of Reverence, where indigenous North American people are interviewed in opposition to Western culturists, typically Caucasian, where the two parties clash over the use of various natural areas. Perhaps it’s more accurate to state that the film is highlighting the “innate stewardship” that Native Americans have shown since their use of North American lands began and the Manifest Destiny-driven sense of construction, innovation and progress that European settlers brought with them along with their genocidal colonization effort in the Americas. With God as their witness, and the power of their environmental use destiny still uncontested, Western lineages in the United States can’t be discounted in environmental ethic due to the gravity of their claim to have been ordained as fate-bound stewards of the land.

In contrast to the western settlers and their intent to use sacred grounds for recreation and “weekend conquering,” Native Americans—dwindling in number and power since the pilgrims came—still hold firm in their also-religiously-mandated approach on worshiping the land literally. The irony is how these peoples had originally not occupied these lands either, and that their rationale does not extend beyond what they are religiously (and/or culturally) inclined to believe about environment use. Native Americans believe in serving and protecting the land (read: environment), only using what is necessary for survival from it. While it can be easy to think this approach to man’s exchange with his environment is most productive in the new Anthropocene Era, there are myriad counterarguments available to support how now, more than ever, humanity should be developing technologies to stitch the wounds inflicted on our planet by the same technologically-prone cultures which caused them. Here we find how these (and other) ideas about how man should relate to the planet reveal themselves to be culturally masturbatory paradoxes the moment they’re challenged by anyone who can zoom out their thinking far enough to examine them from outside the scale of “man versus man.”

As a frequent explorer of existentialism and ethics considerations, I know that where paradoxes are found, danger lurks—not unlike how Val Plumwood’s advising ranger warned her that the swift currents of a main river in the Kakadu wetlands would bring her into the gnashing teeth of crocodiles. Plumwood would, out of selfish curiosity, find herself in these areas anyway on her exploration of the paperbark wetlands, and it is by the same selfish curiosity I worry mankind will continue exploring the forest of environmental ethics paradoxes until they find themselves in their own set of gnashing teeth. Val Plumwood has the wherewithal to know her run-in with the wild element of nature was not indicative of any malicious intent of nature. Instead, Plumwood echoes in Being Prey how the crocodile who had nearly eaten her should not be condemned, for man is physiologically part of the food chain regardless of his beliefs or origin.

So, too, is man part of the environmental stability chain regardless of his beliefs or origin. In the next century and beyond, the way humanity treats the planet will determine how safe it is. Plumwood’s warning was “stay clear of dangerous waters” and our warning as a species in the 21st century is “stay clear of environmental paradoxes.” In other words, if a notion about how to interact with the environment was planted in a factually unverifiable bed of soil (like religious ordainment, for example), it must be repotted at the dawn of the Anthropocene Era as the human race begins to work as an increasingly collectivist organism.

This is where I find myself embracing wholly the idea of integration with nature rather than preservation of or stewardship of it, or so on. I find that, since construction/progression is inevitable in the cultures that cannot be dissuaded from having that sort of influence on the environment, the productive elements of that worldview should be taken and adapted with more preservationist worldviews to balance the destructive tendencies of either (here referring to how Western culture views the lack of use of the environment as a “waste,” thus it is equally as destructive as their pollution from cities, etc.)

When viewing the future of cities and human-nature cooperation from “integrationist” eyes, cities look like structures within natural environments rather than separate or in opposition of them. Wildlife is relatively unhindered, yet commerce, innovation, technology and civilizations in general can continue to thrive and grow so long as they are carbon-neutral or better. Saturated sustainability taking priority creates a “new final frontier” for “alpha cultures” like those of the US, Europe, Russia, Korea, to compete to dominate in. Singapore, Costa Rica, etc. are finding explosions in growth since their refocusing on a sustainability paradigm within their infrastructures, and the dying embers of post-war-obsessed generations and countries will finally be rekindled with senses of cultural pride as soon as the race for sustainable cities and nations becomes the new standard for economic value.

Talking more specifically, biomimicry in design is growing in its influence across all industries. Mimicking nature, designers of all sorts of things have discovered that efficiencies beyond imagination can be unlocked the moment something is redesigned according to nature’s exact specifications. Theologians and scientists can both agree on the results, since biomimicry does not need proof of either. The invention of Velcro as an “adhesive fabric material” benefited humanity the world over—whether it was evolution and adaptation or God who developed the burs which stick so easily to animal fur, where through nature the invention was discovered. The Shinkansen bullet train was changed to not create sonic booms when exiting tunnels any longer, not because of a redesign formed by a human, by a redesign according to the exact specifications of a kingfisher’s avian beak. Termites are teaching us how to design sustainable buildings, dolphins are teaching us how to send signals underwater, humpback whales are teaching us how to create efficient wind power. The list goes on and will only grow as more of nature’s processes are examined for the sake of man’s sustainability and integration with nature.

As an author for the solarpunk movement, a new genre of fiction exploring eco-centric futures of man’s relationship with the environment, I absolutely stand behind the idea of integration between the two. A zero-waste preservationist would say integration still can damage and change the environment, and a fossil fuels industry billionaire would argue that integration would disrupt socio-economic prosperity the world over for the “boring” notion of balance between man and nature. I find that, usually, when two opposing extremists equally despise a compromising ideality, it’s probably the best possible solution to move forward with in the complex Venn Diagram that is “practical ethics”—and I’m sure the motion carries to environmental ethics in the first century where they really, truly matter. Only time will tell, as always, yet in this case, time is very, very angry. I guess for once, compromise might have to take precedent in the eyes of the collective human race.

#solarpunk #environmental #ethics #essay #TIL #academic #ecology #climate #global warming #climate change #deep ecology

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