Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Sonic Frontiers Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Mitchell Saltzman from IGN joins Blessing to give their thoughts on the latest 3D Sonic the Hedgehog adventure. Follow Mitchell https://twitter.com/JurassicRabbit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course, I'm Tim Gettys and I'm joined by the future video games. Blessing, Adioia, Jr. I swear to God, the smoke machines get more aggressive as we go. That was a hard smoke right there. It's a real hard smoke. The real hard smoke. We have a really special games cast today.

We're doing our review of Sonic Frontiers. It is finally here, the game of the year that we have all been waiting for. And I thought, you know what? Bless was the only one that got to. play it here, it kind of funny. That is not enough. We need more people to talk about this game. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it the greatest thing ever made? So we reached out to our friend Mitchell Salsman from IGN and he's joined us today. What's up, Mitchell? What's up, everyone? How's it going? I'm sad that I'm not there to experience the fog in real time. Yeah. But there's a smell to it.

This is a pretty good, you know, almost not, but not quite. Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you so much for joining us you are, you've played the, played through Sonic Frontiers. You are not reviewing it for IGN though, right? Who's reviewing it for IGN over there? It's going to be Travis Northup. He gave it a seven, which I would, I would largely agree with. And yeah, I think, I think we're pretty much on the same page on a lot of stuff with regard to Sonic Frontiers. Awesome.

Well, I want to get right into it. I want to get our thoughts on to this game. Blessing, I want to start with you on the kind of funny scale of one to five. What would you give Sonic Frontier? And tell me a little bit about why. I'm giving Sonic Frontiers a three out of five, right? Sonic Frontier's is not, or Sonic Frontiers is a good video game. It is not great.

It's not amazing. It's not bad. I think it sits at that solid, good place. That said, I fucking love this fine, good three out of five video game, right? I think for me, Sonic Frontiers is the most fun I've had in a three of Sonic game in probably over a decade, probably since Sonic generations. And the big reason for that for me is the fact that. this is a direction for Sonic that I think has been sorely needed.

I think taking Sonic and turning it into more of a collect-a-thon open area, open zone, as they would say at Sega, platformer, I think works so much in its favor. And it's just, it's very refreshing. And that said, right, even though it does, even though it has this shift for the franchise that I'd say is really great, even though it has a lot of direction that I'd say is really great, it is hampered a lot by a lot of the execution and a lot of the technical shortcomings. This game has pop in that'll blow your mind. Like the stuff that you've seen and I imagine previews and gameplay footage in the past in terms of the rails being kind of thrown out everywhere, the platforming stuff being thrown out everywhere.

It is as much of an eyesore as you've seen in the videos. That said, in terms of the actual fun of it, running around the open zones, looking for collectibles, going through the gameplay loop, I think it nails so much of it. But that every single, at every moment where I'm like, this is a blast, this is a great video game. This is a Sonic 3D blast. It's not a Sonic 3D blast, but, you know, this video game is doing the damn thing. I swear to God, every single time I have that moment, there's a small thing or a medium thing that gets in the way of it that makes me go, oh, why? Like, why are we doing this?

Like, why is this story so hokey? Why is it so melodramatic? But then there are other parts where I'm like, why is this so funny? Right? Like, at moments it feels like they're self-aware in the story. And in other moments, it's like, y'all, Sonic, you don't have to take you that serious, right? Like, you know, lay it back a little bit. That said, right, even though I would stick with my three out of five score for this game,

it is maybe some of the most fun I've had in a video game this year. And I think a lot of that comes back to me just loving Sonic and enjoying 3D Sonic. And it accomplishing the, hey, here's a big open 3D playground to play around and it get lost in. and the gameplay loop is where it's at in this one. Mitchell, what do you think of Sonic Frontiers? I largely agree with pretty much everything that Blessing said about it. You know, I wanted to like say right at the top. I'm probably going to say some things that are going to make me make it seem like I hate Sonic Frontiers

over the course of this, you know, this video. But just always come back to the fact that I really, really do like this game. And I, you know, even though I would also say I'd give it a seven, I've had, like, the amount of fun that I've had with this game is comparable to games I would give, like, an eight and maybe even a line. It's just there are, there are certain aspects of the game. And again, like Blessing said, I'm constantly asking myself why. Why is it that I can't turn in all of my cocos to the elder to upgrade speed all at once and I have to do it one at a time? Mitchell, when I tell you that there was a moment where I collected a bunch of the cocos, right, which,

are these collectibles, I'd say, I'd compare them to Korox in Zelda, breath of a while, right? There are these little guys. Is this the cocoa that you're saving in a Monster Hunter world that Greg always talks about? No, that's a different cocoa. But these little cocos are like, you know, these little Korock guys that you find around the world. And you collect them, you then give to one of the, I forget, there's like the father Koko Mitchell and then there's the elder, the elder, the older, I call him the other Koko or something like that.

But you give them to the other Koko and that. And that'll then allow you to either raise your speed or raise your ring capacity. The higher your ring capacity, that's essentially your health bar, right? Where you can lose rings, but you're not losing all of your rings. So when your ring capacity is higher, that means you're lasting longer. You can do that, or you can raise your speed. I had a bunch of koko's at one point late in the game, and I was like, cool, let me turn these all into other koko, as I'm calling them.

And I sat in that menu for legitimately eight minutes, because they don't tell you how much you have left in terms of the number of kokos. and you only, you can, you have to turn them in, like, one pack at a time. I don't know the exact equivalent of how many cocoa is it tastes to raise your level, but let's say, like, maybe it's four or something like that, right? You, you, uh, click the option to raise your speed. He's like, thank you. All right, what do you want to do?

Raise speed. Thank you. All right. What do you want to do? I was caught in that loop for minutes and minutes because, like, they just didn't have an option to turn all of them in, which is weird because with the elder cocoa, you're collecting. Say cocoa one more goddamn time, lesson. With the elder one, there's a different collectible that are like these hearts that you're collecting.

And you can give them to elder, elder Coco to raise your attack damage and defense. And with that, you do give them all at once. At once. And it's great. And like it automatically boom. You went from 30 strength to 40 to 40 strength. And it's easy. Why they didn't do that for the other Coco?

Who the fuck knows? And Sonic Frontiers is filled with decisions like that. You got to love that. We're going to spend the next while talking about this game. What we liked about it, what we didn't like about it. But first, I wanted to let you know that this is the Kind of Funny Gamescast, where each and every week we get together to talk about the latest and greatest in video games. Of course, you could watch it on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny. You could also get it as a podcast by searching for Kind of Funny Gamescast on your favorite podcast service.

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Today, we are brought to you by Factor, meandies, and shady rays, but I'll tell you all about that later. Mitchell, let's keep getting into this. What did you like most about this game? So what I like most about this game, I think, is, you know, it's got a really good blend of different styles of gameplay. You know, and I actually really,

I've really grown to like the open world, open zone gameplay of Sonic Frontiers. It's one of those things where if you don't have a destination, in mind that you're trying to get to, just playing around in the world, looking, like, you know, bouncing on a spring, going, like, pinball style into a bunch of other springs, going on a grind rail, jumping off, running into the next speed ramp, you know, just being able to, like, identify something that you can bounce off of or run fast from or, like, run off. It is a lot of fun, and there's, like, I know you guys have, like, heard me talk about the Tony Hawk aspect of it, I truly do believe that.

I think that's probably my favorite aspect of this game. It's that fact that, you know, if you get a flow going of going real fast and chaining those different, you know, speed gadgets, let's say, chaining them together, linking them with, you know, a little combat encounter that you finish really quickly,

it feels really, really good. I think my biggest bummer is that if you have a destination in mind, and you're trying to get there, Sonic Frontiers will, like, go out of its way to get in their way. Yeah. Like, it doesn't place waypoint markers

at the spot where you need to get to in order to get to where you're, in order to get to where you're going. If there's, like, an island that you need to get to way off in the distance, they'll just put the waypoint at the island. It sounds like, you hit the exact same point where I did. This is the part that you were stuck on, right?

There's the part I was stuck on where I message you, and I was like, how the fuck do I do this thing? And I figured it out. But like, yeah, no, I'm right there with you. Blessing, I was so mad. Yep. When I told you, I wasted maybe multiple hours trying to figure out that exact thing. Yeah.

So here's the issue. Like, you know, there's a, there's an island that you go to that's a bunch of, like, it's probably like eight different islands that aren't connected by a bridge. Yep. And there's, no, it's Sonic Frontier. So you see like a billion railways all up in the air. And you're like, okay, well, which one of these railways will eventually set me on the path to get to where need to go.

And, you know, you jump on these rails thinking that, you know, they'll get you closer to where you're going and they'll send you a different way or they'll put, they'll lock you into like a 2D, a 2D portion where you can't get out of it unless you finish the line. And this is, this is a third map in particular issue, right? Because like, there's multiple maps in Sonic and Sonic Frontiers. And I think this is like the third map is by far just the worst in terms of exactly what Mitchell was talking about. because it is you are on individual islands.

It reminds me actually of playing Mirrors Edge Catalyst, where Mirage Catalyst took Mirage Edge and put it in this open world, and that game took place mainly on rooftops, right? And with a game like that, you want to be free-flowing. You want to go, all right, I want to go here. What's the coolest way I can get to this destination? But because of the way the game is designed, right, and you have all these gaps and all these things that are getting in your way,

you are like, all right, I want to get over here, but I can't just beeline to it and have the waypoint there. I have to go to this building to the left, hop on this building to the north, hop on this building to the right of that building, and then that's how I get there, but it doesn't make it clear. Sonic Frontiers has that exact same issue with the third map.

Plus, I know leading into this launch, I've known you a long time, I know what type of Sonic games you like, and I know that there's a genuine enthusiasm for a lot of the 3D ones. On top of that, I know one of your favorite games of all time is Shadow the Colossus. And when we started seeing trailers for this,

everyone was comparing it to Breath of the Wild for obvious reasons, but you were like, I'm seeing Shadow the Closses here. now that you beat the game, how would you describe the shadow of the colossus versus Breath of Wild versus Sonic? Like how does that all kind of play out to you? So there's, in terms of comparisons, right?

I think there's a lot of influences that this game has. I think the shadow of the colossus influence is there just in terms of there are gigantic enemies that you are fighting. And there is this energy to the world that it feels like a, oh, this is an abandoned world in the way that shadow colossus, I think, embodies that same energy, right?

And there is a discoverability aspect of, oh man, I come across this thing and oh shit, there's a big boss here. All right, let's fight this big boss. You know, it has a lot of that. But I think the Tony Hawk comparison that Mitchell's made is so apt in terms of... Let's go.

Yeah, it's so apt in terms of at every, in any moment, you know, it, I think Sonic Frontiers nails the, hey, it's an open zone, play how you want, do whatever the fuck you want. Here's a bunch of shit that you can go do. Here's a bunch of rails that you can glide on that'll take you to a platforming challenge

so that you can collect a memory token, right, which are one of the main collectibles in the game that help you progress forward. There are so many of them. It reminds me to make another comparison, Mario Odyssey, when you hop into a level of Mario Odyssey and there are moons everywhere and you can go in any direction and figure out which moons you want to get. And a lot of them are so easy to get. A lot of them are a lot harder to get, right? Sonic Frontiers does that exact same thing where it is. You're in an open level. You can go wherever you want and you know you got to collect tokens and you can hop on any one of the rails or any one of the platforming challenges and that's going to run you into one of those

tokens or one of many, many collectibles. So there's that Mario Odyssey aspect of it. Breath of Wild, you know, similar kind of things in terms of tone. And like, I think there are obvious inspirations they take off of, hey, breath of wild kind of has this calm, laid back, chill kind of tone to it. How do we inspire ourselves by that? Right? There's also a level of like near melodramatic energy to it too.

And a lot of it is messy, right? A lot of it is like, what if we took all these good ingredients and then put them into a pot and then stirred that pot? but like the ingredients are fucking like not meant to be together you know what I mean um quite a bit of it is that but I think there is still so much fun in the places that they do find fun within all of those other inspirations that they take that works for it so so then Mitchell so bless talking kind of about the other games inspiration stuff what is your history with with sonic and your interest level in it and what do you think this game did right and wrong in relation to

what Sonic has done right and wrong in the past yeah so I was the Sega kid uh growing up. My pin tweet on my Twitter account is literally me getting a Sega Genesis when I was like seven years old and that was like my first video game console that I actually owned. So like I'm a huge Sonic fan growing up all the way through like, you know, the Genesis days, the Dreamcast days fell off a little bit in the in like the Sonic heroes, you know, Sonic, the bad Sonic. I don't remember what year. No, no, I actually like Sonic unleashed. What was the, what was the, just called Sonic the Edgehog. Oh,

2006. Oh, okay. Oh, six. Sonic 06 did not like. So, you know, it's been a roller coaster, but I think going through it all, like, I always say I'm a big Sonic fan. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 are like, you know, two of my favorite games on the Dreamcast. What this game does that I think is really good is that it incorporates a lot of those really

good elements from the older Sonic games in the cyberspace levels. There's actually levels that are specifically modeled after Sonic Adventure 2 levels. There's like a city escape level. There's like a Green Hill, obviously. There's a Green Hill, even from the Sega Genesis days. There's a chemical plant zone. And not just the background. I know everyone's seen the background of chemical plant zone.

But there's an actual level that is like straight up chemical plant zone with a couple of different additions. It's like the greatest hits versions of those levels where they're all pretty succinct. they're all meant to be beaten pretty quickly. Like these are a minute to two minute long levels. And it feels like it is, all right, here's the chemical plant zone level, but it's the specific part of chemical plant zone that has the specific challenge attached to it. Yeah. And then also what I'll say is that I think this is like the best Sonic has controlled in quite a while.

Maybe since like generations. So that's really, really good to hear. And I have a question on that and just I want to let people know that like when you start the game up, two options it gives you where you can either play. I forget what they're. It's like, I think it's action mode and classic mode or like just classic Sonic mode. It's essentially like,

have you played a 3D Sonic before or are you just jumping in for the first time? My question to you guys is, which one did you play us? Did you go back and forth between the two? And do you think that it's funny that they kind of present the, if you played a Sonic game before, we've already broken you. So you should probably play this mode and like the action modes of the way to play it.

Like, what do you guys think? I don't remember what I what I chose I chose whatever it said was like the recommended thing for if you're familiar with with Sonic games I did the same thing I think but I think that is action mode okay yeah that's that's what I did but I also I also played it on on hard and this game is so weirdly balanced when it comes to difficulty I don't really understand exactly what hard does because it still felt pretty easy and like the the big thing is that like the big thing is that like like there are these challenges that you you have to complete in order to unlock a lot of the map. And most of them are so like weirdly balanced. Like I'll complete something and still have like 60 seconds left over on the clock. Did anyone like actually think about the the timing of how long this actually takes to complete? Or was it just completely arbitrary to throw a time limit on here? That's so funny because in the opposite way, I was just thinking recently about Kirby and the forgotten land because I'm trying to not forget it.

and I was always so impressed with the challenge levels in that game where the timing felt impeccably perfect. Like it was the right balance of making it the right challenge. And they did the thing of like there's three different levels of like or two different levels where you can just beat it and get the silver or beat it at this level and get the gold. And it always felt exactly appropriate to provide the right challenge to like motivate me to be like, oh, I'm supposed to be able to do all these skills in this time limit. And like it enhanced the gameplay and made me a better Kirby player. so it sucks that it sounds like it's the opposite. Is that exact thing that brings the game from a four to be a to being a three for me where there's a lot of the time where I was like exploring the world, doing the challenges and stuff

where I'm like, I'm having a lot of fun with this. I think this could be a four and it would be those moments of, oh man, y'all didn't polish this. Oh man, y'all didn't like think the extra step of yet to the exact thing Mitchell's talking about. You know, there are challenges where they're like, here's two minutes to do this challenge that I beat in 20 seconds. And I'm like, y'all didn't test this one enough, right? A lot of it feels haphazily thrown together. And, you know, I think they take it far enough to where it's like, all right, there's something good here, but not far enough for me to be like, oh, there's something great here.

And, you know, to bring it back a bit, I want to talk about the gameplay loop because free the gameplay loop is the thing that really does bring it together for me really enjoying this game. And so, like, as you know, open levels, the levels are big, right? There's like four to five main levels in the game, and they're all really surprisingly big. you go in, there are multiple kinds of collectibles. One of the collectibles is the memory tokens, which are basically each level is designated to a character. First level is designated to Amy Rose. Amy Rose is a DK-64 situation, everybody.

All of Sonic's friends are locked away. So you've got to get enough collectibles to then like essentially give to that Sonic friend to then unlock cut scenes and progress forward. Blessing, how are we sitting here at this desk talking about a Sonic 3D game in 2022? And we're dropping things where it's just like Donkey Kong 64, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Shadow of the Colosses. It's like, they made my perfect video game, but they made it a three out of five. That is exactly what Sonic Frontiers is the game that I've always asked for, but they just made it a three out of five. But yeah, like the game loop is essentially you are in the open world going through these challenges and collecting those tokens.

At the same time, you are running into boss fights that are these big designed boss battles. that oftentimes are really fun and really good, right? Because going back to the action mode thing, you know, Sonic in that mode, and I don't know how it works in the classic mode, I'm sure the button configuration is just different. But playing in the action mode, Sonic controls like an action game character.

This is a character action game, right? Where it is you lock onto an enemy, you tap square to get hits off, right, where you're punching and kicking, and you can dash and dodge you. You have a counter, you have a parry button, right? If you press L1 and R1, you can parry. The only thing with that, though, is that you can hold it.

And so the Perry isn't really, it's not in time to parry. It's a parry you can hold. And at any point, if an enemy hits you and you got that up, you get the counter. Okay. Surprisingly forgiving and easy, but it's whatever. But you also have a skill tree. They can go and upgrade so that you can unlock more combo moves. I really like the combo moves.

I think they're pretty good. So going from that, Mitchell, one of the things before we went live, you were saying that you upgraded your speed all the way. And that, I'm interested in how that all works. because I remember playing at Summer Games Fest, there's the kind of the HUD had the different, like four different things you can level up and speed being one of them.

Does leveling up your speed actually make the game feel dramatically different and better? So it does at a certain point. There's definitely like a plateau. I think once I got to like 30 speed, that was when I didn't really notice the incremental differences all that much. But from like, you know, zero to 30,

Yeah, there's a big difference between that. And what I like about upgrading your speed in this game is that you never feel out of control in the open world of Sonic Frontiers. And that's also important to state is that the upgrade speed does not carry over into the cyberspace levels. Those are all completely separate.

So when you're upgrading your speed, you're really only upgrading your speed when it comes to navigating through the open world. Um, but yeah, like going back for a second also, I want to touch upon the, the parry because it's such like a weird thing. There are like enemies that, uh, you know, require you to parry. It doesn't really, it doesn't make it clear unless you, you, you happened upon like the one tool tip that tells you you don't have to, you can just hold it down. Um, but there are certain boss battles that like, you have to parry or you're just getting to like this, this, uh, loop of the boss knocking you back, knocking you back, knocking you back, knocking you back. and I didn't know that you didn't have to time it.

So I'm like trying to get like a really, you know, tight timing on it. And it drove me crazy. Oh, man. And then I learned that all you have to do is hold it down. Like, well, then what's the point? What's the point of the pair? Yeah. I want to go back to the gameplay loop for a second, right?

Because I talk about like, you know, finding the bosses, getting to the boss fights, completing that stuff, right? After you beat a boss, you get a portal gear, right? Which you then take to put into these, I guess they're just called portals, aren't they, Mitch? I forget if there's an actual other name for them. Yeah, I don't remember what the actual. They look like Thrones.

They look like thrones. But like you take them, you put the portal gears in the portal. That then, those then unlock the linear sonic levels that are the classic levels that you know, right? You beat those, depending on how many challenges you complete in those levels. Because with each level, there's always like four challenges. It is complete the level. Get all the five red coins. Get a complete the level with a certain amount.

Rings. Rings plus and rings. Sorry, red rings, red rings. Good call, good call. I got slammed from this. But you collect the five red rings. You collect a certain number of rings by the time you finish the level,

and you beat the level under a certain amount of time. If you, for each objective, you get a key. If you can lead all four objectives, you get an extra three keys. You then take those keys to then unlock chaos emeralds. The goal of each big map is to collect the seven chaos emeralds, and then you get into a big boss fight

and you move on to the next thing. that gameplay loop I mean that sounds awesome everything you just said I'm like cool it's a fucking fantastic gameplay loop and I think that is the future

of Sonic and I think that is exactly what Sonic needs to be because that is what led to me getting invested into this game for 21 hours it took me 21 hours

to beat this game and I would play 20 more hours of this game because of that gameplay loop Mitchell what about you how long it took me to beat it or yeah it took me about like 16 and you know

that's probably because I've played this game a ton already at preview events. So I was pretty familiar with the first two islands. I think 20 hours is probably what it would take most people to get through it, though. Do you guys think that that's, I mean, you clearly said you play more, but like Mitchell, do you think that 20 hours for this game is right? Or do you think that maybe more or less would make your score be higher? I think 20 hours is pretty good. I think this game probably. This game probably. could do with some more, like, higher tier collectible, you know, discovery.

The level, the islands in this game are pretty basic in terms of their design. There's no, like, you know, really cool, you know, off the beaten path things that take you to, like, a really, really cool, like, hidden Easter egg or collectible or anything like that. It's all, it's all pretty on the nose, let's say. So you'll see a very clearly labeled bumper. It'll take you to a bunch of different other bumpers. And then you'll culminate with you getting some sort of either memory token or the fruits or some other thing that you need to collect. I do think that this is the future of Sonic.

And I think it's a really good first step. What I would like to see in a future sequel for it is, is, you know, go crazy with the level design. Oh, yeah. You know, I think, I think this was a little too grounded in reality. Um, and it, a lot of people have been talking about, oh, it just looks like an unreal, like, test level that they just put a bunch of Sonic things in. It, it kind of does have that feel. Yeah.

And I, I would really like to see Sonic get a little more creative with, you know, what the actual world looks like. It takes me back to, back in June when we played during summer game fest. And I came back. And a lot of my impression was, like, this is fun. Delay this video game. Like, give this game time. Like, give this game another year or two because you got something here. And playing it now, I'm still in that same place of like, yo, this game is out.

And it's an IGN 7 out of 10. It's a kind of funny 3 out of 5. Give it, like, take the same game and give it the polish it deserves. And I think it could be an IGN 9 or a kind of funny 4 or 5, right? because, you know, to Mitchell's point of, yeah, like, why are levels so basic in terms of their theming in terms of, like, their feel, right? Like, when you get into the next big map, I feel like I should be like, oh, let's go, what's around the corner?

But it is like, okay, no, here's the same thing but desert. Here's the same thing, but another theme. And I wish those was a bit more there. I want to know what the more is that you're looking for. Like, what suggestions would you have? Before you answer that question, let's talk to you about our surprise. sponsors. Shout out to Shady Ray's for sponsoring this episode. Shady Rays has all the essentials you need to make summer complete. Shady Ray's

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I feel like the different collectibles should feel like I'm getting a different thing. The one collectible that feels like I am, okay, cool, I got one, are the chaos emeralds, which I understand. Like, yeah, those are the big collectible in the game, but there are plenty of other big collectibles where I'm like, this should feel like I'm getting a moon in Mario Odyssey, but they give it exactly no fanfare. And the list goes on also, you know, talking about the platforming challenges and the rails that feel like they're just thrown all over the place.

There is kind of a rhyme or reason in terms of, yeah, everything leads to a collectible, everything leads to a region that you might want to go to, right? Like, it's not just random rails, but they feel like that. I do wish that there was a, no, but this rail is connected to a structure. Like this platforming challenges connected to another thing that leads to another thing. I wish there was more integration with the actual platforming into the world itself to actually make it feel full in a way that when I play Mario Odyssey, you know, there are platforms everywhere, but at least, you know, a platform will have like a propeller under it, like a helicopter propeller under it to make it make sense in the world. I wish there was a bit more of that. Mitchell, what about you?

Is there anything that that would give it that boost for you in terms of the TLC I'm talking about? Yeah, it really is missing that cohesion. like you mentioned Mario Odyssey. Mario Odyssey, it does have those elements where it is kind of just floating platforms in like a blank space. But there's also New Dog City. And New Dog City feels like an actual city

that you can also play around in. Sonic Frontiers doesn't have that. It has a bunch of realistic locations. There's like a desert. There's a volcanic set of islands that we've already. already talked about, and I don't want to talk about anymore because it just makes me sad.

Worst level in the game. And then there's like the first island, which is kind of like, you know, green, you know, foresty, green plains kind of thing. It really needs some sort of extra thing to really bring cohesion to both the world and the level

design, I think. When it comes to the more generation style levels that you get, I forget, what they're called, but the cyber space ones. So in, you know, the Breath of Wild comparisons, when we played a little at Summer Game Fest, we're like, oh, they're kind of treating these cyber levels that are

essentially generation style 3D Sonic. They're treating those as the shrines in Breath of the Wild. And there are many, many, many shrines in Breath of Wild. How many-ish, or I don't know if you're allowed to say, but like, are there a ton of these levels, or is it like, oh, there's

a handful of them? I would say, so I think the there's an actual like right rhyme and reason to it it's i think it's like seven per per uh per zone yeah does that feel like a good amount last one has nine um what sorry what was that does that feel like a good amount of them yeah i thought so um i think so also yeah and you know they're they're bite size i i think the quality of the cyberspace levels does vary there are some bad ones for sure um i i would say they're there are some mediocre ones.

I actually think the 2D ones, most of the 2D ones are pretty slow. Yeah. But there's also some, you know, there's also some fucking bangers. There are some really, really good ones. And yeah, I think there's a good spread of different styles of levels. I think the direction for a lot of them is good, too,

because, you know, we associate Sonic with speed, right? Like, the slogan is legit, like got to go fast. And we talk about that all the time. Like, oh, man, He goes fast. This is his whole thing. But when you play, like, a lot of the Sonic games, like there's not really an incentive to go fast.

He just happens to go fast. For all of these sonic levels, there is incentive to go fast, right? They are short. And each thing has a time associated with it where if you beat this level in under one minute, 15 seconds, you get an extra key. And they do feel designed to speed run, which is a thing that I absolutely love and is a thing that I think works. I want to see more out of it.

With those levels, and like, I'm with Mitchell, right? I think there's a varying degree to quality to a lot of the levels, but I do think that a lot of them are great. I do think that a lot of them could be better with the five, collect the five rings thing. Sorry, the five red rings challenge that you have on all the levels. The one thing with that is that the rings are all very easy to find, which might be part of the point, because, you know, I wasn't really racking my brain at any point to figure out where the rings were. But, you know, it was one of those things where I'm doing these levels, let's say, one, two, maybe three times at most to do all the challenges. And on the first try, I can usually find all the five rings if I'm taking my time, right?

Usually I am like, all right, do I want to take my time, get all the rings? Or do I want to go for the fast speed challenge? But yeah, usually finding the rings can be pretty easy. So you said that you played about 20 hours, you would play 20 hours more. Are you planning to 100% this thing? No, no. There's so much in this game. And I don't, I need to check the trophies because if the platinum trophy is like, hey,

collect every single character token and every single collectible, then no, because this game does have the DK64 problem as well, where there's too much fucking collectibles in this video game which I love because I never got bored to find the collectibles but at the same time it makes me not one 100% it. So no, but I

could see myself go back to do like the things that I enjoy right, hey, let me go back and clear all the Cyrus space levels and maybe 100% the cyrus space levels. I can see myself doing that but I don't think I'm going to go back to do every single thing in the video game. Mitchell, what about you?

Quick note about that also, you know, with regards to the memory tokens and like 100%ing, there is a fishing mini game in this game that basically allows you to completely skip like a lot of the progression that you would normally do by searching out a lot of those coins, a lot of those co-coes. This is one of the most insane things about this video game. Please, I want to see. I want to know what your realization was that this, like, this was a thing because I didn't find fishing until the last level.

and when I found it, it utterly blew my mind. It's just so crazy. My first realization when I found out that you can get bundles of 20 Cocos for like three or five fishing tokens or whatever was like, oh, great, I can easily get to the level 99 speed. I was worried about that. But it's not just the Cocos. It's everything.

Every collectible in the game. Yeah, if you're like, oh, man, I'm kind of sick of just, you know, looking for all these memory tokens. I got like 50 more I need to give to the next character. You can just go to the fishing game, spend like 10 minutes there. Yep. And you'll have enough fishing tokens to buy your way through the rest of the island with memory tokens. They basically gave you a way to break the game for you.

Does that feel designed? Like does it feel like on purpose of they're giving you the option of, hey, if you don't want to do the stuff, we still want you to be able to play the way you want? Or does it feel like they just didn't think this through? I have a list of all the times I went, why in this game. And that is certainly on there. That is on the list. I'm like, why?

Why do you just have this way to just like literally brute force your way through the general progression of the game? So that's also probably one of the reasons why I ended up beating it faster than the blessing, because that last stretch of memory tokens, you need to get so many of them on the last island. That's why I just, in a way, in a funny way, like, that's why I was happy to find the fishing in the last level. Okay. And when I'm in my review mode, right, like, I had played so much of the game. And the game sort of made, there's a point where I was like, oh, okay, this is wrapping up. And then, like, more happened.

And I was like, oh, there's way more of this game to play. And I found that fishing minigame. And I was like, oh, let me fish with big the cap for a little bit. And, you know, from 10 minutes, like Mitch said, you get so many of those fish tokens. And I looked and I was like, oh, I can spend these on any collective. all right, let me buy packs these things, right? And I brute force my way through the memory tokens because I was like, wow, this is a lot of memory tokens

for the last island. But to hear a question of like, does it feel like it's on purpose or designed or does it feel like what the fuck? And I think it's a little bit of both of there's a lot of collectibles to get. And so it's a way to kind of speed up that process. Because again, like that's when it was, this felt like a long video game. I was surprised by how much was in here and how much the game was asking of you

at some points in terms of, of getting the collectibles. I think this was maybe their method of balancing the ask they had in terms of collectibles, but maybe over, like, over correcting in terms of, yeah, now just pay your way through the game if you want to by going fishing with big and froggy, baby. You got to love it. Mitchell, as a fan of Sonic Adventure one and two, I know that, you know, that puts you in a, in a very specific camp, right?

And it's a very fervent camp and a camp that hasn't really been given much in the way of, like, a follow-up to that style of gameplay. Do you think that Sonic Frontiers is going to speak to the adventure crowd? In a way, look, I think there's a lot of different reasons to like Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. I think a lot of people like Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 because of the fact that there was no boost. It was very momentum driven. And the levels were very tight. And they had a ton of different opportunities to go different ways.

And in certain ways, Sonic Frontiers will appeal to some of that. But it is still fundamentally a boost-driven Sonic games. So there is that element that is going to be very different. And I don't think that, you know, Sonic Adventure fans will be appeased by that. But like I said before, there are also a bunch of cyberspace levels that are modeled after Sonic Adventure levels that will surely bring waves of nostalgia to fans of those Dreamcast games. And speaking of the nostalgia of all of it, music is such a huge part of Sonic the Hedgehog normally.

I like listen to Sonic music way more than I probably should. But it's because they're bangers in any form, whether it's like orchestral versions, dubstep versions, the original versions, all the stuff. How's the music in this game? I'd say, it's a mix bag. Why every time I ask you a question about this? Do you have to take a deep breath and laugh?

before you say it's a mix back because there are bangers there are moments there's like boss battle music that's like less fucking in multiple boss battle music moments where it's like let's fucking go like they they brought the stuff like i think there are going to be anthems in the way that like you know like city escape sonic heroes like those kind of songs stand out i don't know there's i don't think there's a main theme that stands out as much as those ones but there are songs that it's like cool you can put this in your catalog of sonic the hedgehog songs that do stand out and that are that are great But as a whole, I think there is a lot of inconsistency with the soundtrack where it's like, why isn't the soundtrack bumping in this cyberspace level? But you had another cyberspace level where it's like, oh man, all right, they got some EDM up in here.

And it's like base idiom, but also it's, you know, it does get the energy going. But then there's one moment in the game. And Mitchell will know where I'm talking about where there's a song that plays that I legitimately started laughing my ass off based on this song. This like, I don't want to ruin it. Yeah. I don't want to ruin. I'm excited. Based on the song choice, based on like the tone of the scene.

all this stuff. There's a song that plays where I'm like, what just happened? Like, why, why is this happening right now? Like, head in, like, head in the, in my palm, in the palm of my hands, like, what the fuck is happening? What you, you guys said that there's chemical plan zone and city escape, like, do they play the music or is it just getting spot? No. No, just, just, just, just, just it's like generic music. Damn, that is so sad. Yeah. It is. One other thing that I wanted to to mention, you know, we, we, we talked about, uh, you know, this wild assortment. of games that we've been mentioning that Sonic Frontiers is similar to.

I'm going to throw another into the mix. Osra's wrath. Okay. In the boss battles, there is some serious Osirah's wrath energy going on. And actually, I want to ask a blessing what you thought about not just the big boss battles,

but some of the Guardian bosses. That's another aspect of the game where I'm very mixed. I love the idea of it. And in world, I do love the execution of it, but it is boss per boss in terms of the experience you're going to have. There are some bosses that you find in the world. And like, to give context of what these bosses are and how they appear, think like in Breath of the Wild where you're just hanging out in the world and all of a sudden a fucking rock emerges. You're fighting a big rock monster now, right?

Like they are these in world, you know, you happen by these boss fight type moments. And those are how are you getting the portal gear so they don't lock the linear sonic levels, et cetera, et cetera. there are certain ones where it is, all right, like you've encountered tarantula, who's like a boss that is like a guardian boss and they look cool. I like the design of them. And, you know, that boss within transition to like throw you up in the air and now the whole point is like you're flying down and trying to get to the boss through this cool set piece moment. There are quite a few of those and they're very cool. And there are other ones where it is like, all right, cool, square up. Like here's a Dark Souls boss that you're fighting that is.

All right, Perry, all right, hit. And of course, it's never as in-depth in as designed as a Doxel boss or anything like that. But it is that kind of square up kind of moment of lock on, Perry, fight back, do your combos, take out this boss kind of moments. Then there are other bosses that are just kind of annoying in terms of what their design are, where there will be these designed set piece boss moments, but like they just feel messy. And for example, one of the giant ones, like the Shadow Colossus style of bosses, it is, all right, you're running up the leg and getting to the top and then you're attacking.

the weak spots at the top of this gigantic boss, but then they are phase-based. So you get to phase two, and now you're running up the leg. But they have the boosts that are up, that are running down the leg, but then they also have the repels. And it is, all right, let me jankly try to run up this boss

while the camera is not hanging in there, while I'm getting thrown off, while I'm just, the fun is being ruined moment-to-moment finding this boss. There are quite a few of those as well. So for me, it was a mixed bag. But for Mitch, for you,

how do the boss-boss fight shake out? I think a lot of the, the bosses in this game follow this, this, uh, kind of philosophy of spectacle over like fun gameplay. Um, a lot of them are like, you know,

really cool to look at. And I'm sure like someone watching like a stream will be like, oh man, that looks awesome. But like the actual mechanics of, of the, of the fight are really not that fun. And what,

what makes it frustrating, especially with the guardian boss battles is that they keep on, like they are multi-phased, fights where you have you know okay you you finish your damage then you go back up you got to do this slow you know descent back down and you got you know get back to the damage phase and then those fights are repeated without variance all throughout the the world and so it just like kind of becomes a chore because you have to do those fights in order to get the keys to get to cyberspace and you know the the set pieces while they're fun to look at they're just not that much fun to

And if you like get knocked, heaven forbid, you get knocked off the shark while you're grabbing onto its tail and trying to avoid, you know, falling off. Oh, man. If you get knocked off the shark, though, then you got to wait again and you got to repeat the whole thing, the whole like thing of holding on. Yeah, the QTEs. But yeah, I do feel the Asura's wrath thing you're talking about. Because I think it's that exact point that you're making of. Yeah, it feels like it's prioritizing spectacle over pure fun and gameplay. And for some of them, it worked for me, right?

where it is, all right, here's a challenge. This boss threw you up in the air. Now fly down and fly through these rings and avoid its attacks as you get down to the floor so you can fight them again. But then other times it is, all right, cool. Now I got to do this thing because I got hit off the boss and now I got to reset, try and go through the motions again. And the jink can get in the way, right?

And it's not fun when it is. All right, am I wrong here? Or does the game, did the game do a weird camera thing that then lost me off the boss? And now I have to do it over again. I think that's where it can get in the way of itself. So I want to wrap this up here. I have one more question for you guys. We talked a lot about the gameplay.

We talked a lot about the different styles of gameplay and all of that stuff, how it feels. Sonic as a character in the last couple games has seen different shifts. And like just Sonic, we have different eras of him. There's the classic. There's the adventure. There's generations, all of that. And then now we have the movies with Ben Schwartz,

kind of given this character. How is Sonic as a character in this? I know he has a new voice actor. Do you like it? Does it feel different than the other ones? It's not a new voice actor, actually. It's a different take that Roger Craig Smith is putting on the character. It's like a slightly deeper, more mature kind of voice I's using, but it's still Roger Craig Smith.

No, it's not. I think I saw him in the credits, yeah. What? What happened? It's absolutely still Roger Craig Smith. I believe that's accurate. Wasn't it a big deal that there was a new Sonic voice actor? I think you're thinking of Bayonetta.

No. No, I do remember the story that you were talking about, Tim, but I feel like that was for another project, not this game. That might have been for a different project. Oh, yeah, it is a Netflix show. That is a different Sonic. Sonic Prime. Oh, my God.

Wow, I thought it was for the game as well. That said, though, it is a different take on Sonic that I don't like. I didn't, I don't, I, starting off, the deep voice did not feel accurate for Sonic. He is way more mellowed out. I would have preferred him to be, like, traditional upbeat. Sonic. I don't know about you, Mitch. So I think this is like the first moment where me and Blessings' opinions on this game will differ. I actually kind of like the more mature take on Sonic and, you know, some

of the melodrama that this game adds. I will say, you know, they hired Ian Flynn, who is a very prolific writer of Sonic Comics. And his addition to the writing staff of this game is like immediately noticeable. These are the most, like, nuanced takes on the sonic characters there's ever been. And that's, you know, it's still a Sonic game. I'm not saying this is like a god of war, Ragnarok or a Laxas situation. But, you know, these are characters that, you know, go through some, some mental stuff. Like, you know, there's a, again, to bring back Chaos Island, I hate that island.

but it does have my my favorite like story arc of it with Tails like Tails goes through some some serious doubts of like confidence over the course of this game and it's just like really nice to see that friendship that we've always known Sonic and Tails have had but never really seen like the depth of and you get to see the depth of it in Sonic Frontiers like yeah I think if you're a Sonic fan that uh enjoys the characters and looks forward to like story from those characters. Sonic Frontiers does have quite a bit to offer in terms of like, yeah, exploring who these characters are and

actually giving you, like giving you pretty good content. Usually when it comes to Sonic stories, I I'm not there for it. Like Sonic Forces, I remember starting off that game and there was a moment where they're like, oh man, Sonic is being tortured and I'm like, what the fuck's happening? What is happening in this game? And I think Sonic Frontiers handles

that stuff a bit better. I'm still not in love with the story and there are moments where again, I had to of a chuckle at certain like character moments and reveals and stuff. But I know exactly what moment you're talking about with regards to the chuckle. And I can't wait for more people to get there so I can, so we can chuckle all together.

At the same time, like, you know, Mitchell mentioned tales. There's a moment with knuckles where I was like, damn, dude, like, this is actually pretty good stuff. And so, yeah, if you're looking for, if you're a sonic fan looking forward to story, you're going to enjoy it. If you're not a sonic fan and you don't really care about the characters and story, you might laugh more than we do. Yeah.

You might roll your eyes all right. I have a story just with Bless's review process of this, which was truly fascinating of him standing over at his desk, looking over at me and being like, Barrett, this is the worst game I've ever played. Did I say that? No, you did. Okay, maybe I did say it.

Because I was like, yeah, that tracks. And then I go back to my work. And then not even a minute later, he turns back at me and says, Barrett, this is the best game I've ever played. Yep. And that is the exact same. That my friend is the new sonic cycle.

One thing I do want to shout out is the side loop mechanic. That is a sonic's new ability to where you press the whole triangle and he leaves a trail behind them. And when you circle that trail, you can wrap things around and that'll break enemies' defenses. But that also solves in real puzzles. Fantastic mechanic. That's a fantastic addition to this game. One of my favorite mechanics that they added because you do get a lot of, I know we keep going back to Ref Vald, a lot of Koroxie like moments where you see something in the

world and you're like, oh, this has an interesting pattern and you do the side loop ability around it and it gives you collectibles. And I'm like, let's fucking go. And so that helps a lot with the discoverability aspect of the game. And also just make certain puzzles fun, you know, makes enemy enemy combat a bit more interesting. That is a great, great addition to this game. I was going to say, sorry, just real quick, the side loop in combat is such like a quintessential, like sonic thing, like just running circles around your enemy to like. like, you know, knock them up and they can, you know, do a homing, like, making them vulnerable to a homing tech. It's such a good, it's such a good technique. And again, I hope I see it, we see its return. I hope they keep it on games. Bless, what are your final thoughts, Sonic Frateers? Again, Sonic Frontiers is probably my favorite 3D Sonic in over a decade.

Maybe over time, it may, might be, honestly, might be my favorite 3D Sonic game ever. I've, I really had a fun time with it, despite all of its laundry list of flaws, which there is a laundry list, right? It's a game that I think has very high highs and also has pretty low lows. It's not a game that I'd recommend to everybody. I'm very excited to see where the review scores shake out because I think it's going to be

one of those games that I think lands everywhere in terms of review scores. And so I look forward to actually seeing that stuff go up. But it's one that if you like 3D Sonic, if you're open to it, if you enjoy those kind of games, 1,000% check it out. If you're not a Sonic person,

if you never enjoyed a Sonic game, don't play Sonic Frontiers. If you're like, if you like platformers made you play it. Greg Miller's been like saying that he's like kind of interested in this. What do you think Greg's going to think of this game? Oh, he's tapped out already. Oh, he's tapped out.

Yeah, because he's like hearing you talk about it like on and off the last few days. He's like, yeah, I'm probably, I'm probably not going to do that. Yeah. And honestly, I think I'm the same because the only good Sonic game in my opinion is mania. And so, yeah, I don't think this will be for me either. Well, hearing you guys talk about it, it's getting me even more excited. I cannot wait. I cannot wait to play this.

Mitchell, what are your final thoughts and where can people find you? My final thoughts on Sonic Frontiers, look, it's a good game. Like Blessing said, there are so many weird, weird problems with it. Like, they just took a bunch of stuff, threw it at the wall, and then didn't actually see how, like, how much anything actually stuck. We didn't even talk about the fast travel system. Oh, my God, the fast travel. There is no fast travel, basically. Like, you have to, in order to fast travel between the cyberspace levels, you have to find all the little mini-puzzle.

And yeah, you can also find little scrolls from fishing. You can go to the different Khorox. This game really needed fast travel. It needed better waypointing and it needed better world design. But the high points of Sonic Frontiers are, I would say, some of the highest points that I've ever had playing a Sonic game. Yep. This is also probably my favorite 3D Sonic in quite a while.

I would say, I probably like colors a little bit more, but it's definitely better than forces. It's definitely better than... It's better than the last decade, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Generations definitely is still the best 3D Sonic game. But, you know, Frontiers is in the mix,

and I can't wait to see what they do next because I think, you know, the future of Sonic is looking bright. You'll love to hear it. Where can people find you? You can find me on Twitter at Jurassic grab it and also all over IGN, though I'll probably be, you know, absent for the next couple months because I'm having a baby. Very, very soon. Congratulations. Hell yeah. That's awesome. Name him Sonic, you coward. Name him Sonic. At least introduce him to Sonic. Well, thank you so much, Mitch,

for hanging out with us today. Thank you, bless, for your excellent review of Sonic Frontiers. Let us know in the comments below. If you are thinking of picking this one up, you're going to wait for a sale, if you're like, I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole. Either way. I love you all. Until next time, goodbye.