Sonic Frontiers Gamescom Critic Previews (New Screenshots from the Desert Island)

[BlueStarEXSF]

EDIT: THE OP IS NOW UPDATED

So the embargo is supposed to lift tomorrow but a site has released their preview early so I figured I'd make the thread. Do note that critics had access to a demo separate from the public that allowed to play on the second island of Sonic Frontiers.

Here is the newly released gameplay:


View: https://youtu.be/uiDkwVnNVrY

Embargoed demo impressions:

T3:
Ignore the critics, Sonic Frontiers is fine – and I played it!

Eurogamer:
Hands On: Sonic Frontiers Is a Positive Step Forward That Needs Further Work

Pushsquare:
Sonic Frontiers wrestles with taking the series' essence to the Open Zone

GameInformer:
Sonic Frontiers Is The First Sonic Game I Want To Play Since Dreamcast

Spindash.de:
Sonic Frontiers: Kronos Island und Ares Island im Gamescom Hands-On: Es ist großartig!

GameReactor:
I've played Sonic Frontiers at Gamescom and it's looking much better

Sonic Stadium Interview:
TAKASHI IIZUKA WANTS TO 'CONNECT' THE SONIC UNIVERSES AND CREATE A 'UNIFIED SONIC EXPERIENCE' – SONIC STADIUM INTERVIEW

ActuGaming (FR)
Sonic Frontiers : Notre interview avec Īzuka Takashi de la Sonic Team à l'occasion de la Gamescom 2022

Sixth Axis
Sonic Frontiers Preview – A jam-packed open world, but is it fast enough?

XboxMag:
Sonic Frontiers : On a passé la seconde, voici notre avis sur le jeu de Sega

IGN France
Preview Sonic Frontiers, beaucoup plus fun à jouer qu'à regarder

CGMagazine:
Sonic Frontiers Still Doesn't Convince: Gamescom 2022 Preview

DotEsports:
Hands-on: Sonic Frontiers' open world feels dry and empty

An interesting tidbit from the french ActuGaming interview is that they asked Iizuka if a downloadable demo would be made available and the answer is no. I'll also add that their impression was quite positive (and they used to think it looked bad based on the the initial footage).

Here's a reddit thread that has categorized the previews from positive to negative. Some of those are not in english (I left the french ones because I speak french) and, thus, I haven't added to the thread but if you speak any of those languages, you can enjoy them!

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

So, what does this all mean?

1. Of the 22 impressions, 14 could be said to be optimistic, 6 as pessimistic and 2 as mixed/unclear
2. The biggest point of contention seems to be the "open zone". Depending on who's playing, the open zone could either be dense, substantial and fun to explore, or empty, directionless and boring. This could explain why despite being positive on the games other components, SegaMag's and GamersGlobal's previewers seemed to be pessimistic towards the game as they didn't feel hooked by the open zone.
3. Many outlets did complain about pop-in, and some even mentioned frame rate issues
4. The Cyberspace levels were enjoyed almost across the board.
5. There's a shark boss fight which sounds cool as fuck. That has little to do with the impressions themselves I just wanted to get that out there.
6. I placed Eurogamer in mixed/unclear because I really didn't know where to place their opinion, partially because their article doubles as an interview with Takashi Iizuka. I think it's leaning towards positive, though I can't be certain.

Overall:

It seems so far that opinions of Sonic Frontiers are mostly positive, though praise is by no means universal. The combat, Sonic's controls and cyberspace levels seem to be the most enjoyed aspects of the game thus far, and the open zone seems to be a particularly subjective matter. There are seemingly some technical aspects about the game that need sharpening up before release.

Before I go, I quickly want to mention the public demo as I was also keeping up with impressions there. They seemed to be very positive on that front, moreso than with the closed demo.

And one last thing I want to mention is that the public and closed demos of Sonic Frontiers in total came up to about 45 minutes worth of gameplay at most, providing you got the chance to play both like Ruki from SpinDash did. Sonic Frontiers can take up to 30 hours to beat, and about twice as long to 100%, so these are by no means definitive and final opinions about the game and they are all subject to change. We'll only really know the true quality of the game when it comes out in full. That being said, signs look reasonably positive.

Click to shrink...

Public demo impressions:

GameXplain:
Sonic Frontiers Is REALLY GOOD! 🦔 Hands-On Discussion (Open-World, Controls, Combat & More!)

We PC Gaming:

View: https://twitter.com/SonicHubYT/status/1564058699949293568

IGN Interviewing Random Fans

View: https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1563490501512159233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1563562941542060032%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=

There are other various twitter impressions from fans I won't add right here but they are generally positive. Many of them site the controls as being good.

Q&A twitter thread from the person who wrote the Spindash.de preview. There's a lot of info here:


View: https://twitter.com/Ruki185/status/1564613628468264967

Spoiler: Screenshots

 

[mrmickfran]

Glad to hear positive impressions

Really hope this game succeeds

 

[AGoodODST]

Good to see more positive impressions, really looking forward to this. Screens of new area looks really nice!

 

[Chumunga64]

the desert island looks way better than the first one

and we've seen footage of that boss. it's basically every boost game boss but the spectacle of flying around the overworld makes up for it a bit

 

[Garrison]

Glad to hear positive impressions

Really hope this game succeeds

Click to shrink...

Same here, looking good so far! Might surprise a few folks.

 

[alphacat]

Damn these are some surprisingly positive impressions

Lines up with what Gerstmann heard about the game being good a while back

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

Keeping my expectations tempered even with the positivity. Better for my sanity.

 

[Diogo Arez]

Glad to see some positive impressions, but to me the game still looks really mediocre, hopefully it changes my mind at launch I guess

 

[Tsumami]

Screens look cool except for fucking chemical plant again, but from everything ive seen the game still looks worrying and kinda not good. There's been alot of positive word of mouth from people that got to play it though, so I won't write it off fully just yet. The copy paste shit and momentum jank that people posted from the gamescom footage has me real close to just saying fuck it and being done with the game tho

 

[super moustique]

How good is the Switch version ?

 

[NotLiquid]

The desert island gives me wistful flashbacks to being a kid watching the Sonic Wildfire teasers (Secret Rings? I don't know her)

 

[Atom]

Jesus fuck those screenshots looks like a completely different game lol. The first biome wasn't really doing it for me but that night desert shot looks awesome as does a lot of the topography and general environmental art in that zone.

E: slightly worrying that it seems there are GHZ themed levels even in the second island. Welp. Maybe it's a placeholder.

 

[DanielG123]

This game looks absolutely stunning, holy moly. With RT apparently in as well, this thing is going to be spectacular to look at, especially on PC.

And, the positive impressions just keep rolling in. You love to see it!

 

[Elyian]

Rooting for this game to at the very least be a solid B man. I miss good sonic games, and the initial impressions of this were horribad, so i'm glad to see it's having a significantly better showing at gamescom. Hopefully they ride this momentum all the way through to release.

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

This game looks absolutely stunning, holy moly. With RT apparently in as well, this thing is going to be spectacular to look at, especially on PC.

And, the positive impressions just keep rolling in. You love to see it!

Click to shrink...

There's a lot of cool stuff. A day and night cycle. 3D Clouds, RT, etc.

 

[Wil348]

Regardless of whether the game's good, bad, okay or mediocre, the marketing has been utter dogshit. Wouldn't be shocked if it winds up being a repeat of Guardians of the Galaxy.

 

[CloseTalker]

Regardless of whether the game's good, bad, okay or mediocre, the marketing has been utter dogshit. Wouldn't be shocked if it winds up being a repeat of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Click to shrink...

Sonic is an inherently popular property in games, there's literally no chance of that happening

 

[Deleted member 93062]

This game has been a hype rollercoaster for me. I started out interested, then saw the first gameplay teaser and got hype, then saw IGN's first video and hype tanked, then saw previews from SGF and Easy Allies saying that it has that same intoxicating feeling that BotW has when you're just exploring and finding stuff and that they can't wait to play more, then saw some other trailers and lost hype, now this and I'm hype again.

The marketing has been terrible but all I wanted out of this game was a big world where I could run fast and have it feel good. It seems like they've nailed that part down.

 

[breander]

I really hope they can fix the pop in. It's been super distracting in every video of the game I have seen.

 

[digitalrelic]

Those screenshots look so much better than what we've seen so far.

I have no idea why Sega thought it was a good idea to show that sterile, empty, UE4 demo looking island as their first look at the game.

 

[Finiri6143]

Those screenshots look so much better than what we've seen so far.

I have no idea why Sega thought it was a good idea to show that sterile, empty, UE4 demo looking island as their first look at the game.

Click to shrink...

That's the starting point of the game? Of course that would be the first island they show.

 

[Vex]

Omg.... Someone Hold me.... It might actually be good......?


Oh, hold me closer...

 

[Jencks]

This game never looked that bad to me. I'm glad to hear it's good

 

[digitalrelic]

That's the starting point of the game? Of course that would be the first island they show.

Click to shrink...

Since when do they only show the starting point of a game as the first reveal of a game? Games are virtually never revealed that way.

 

[Kinsei]

The desert is leagues better than the first island visually.

 

[Galactic Specter]

There's a funny disconnect over this game between the people arguing over social media and the actual impressions from those who have played it at gamescom. Definitely something to look out for.

 

[Rurouni]

Overall hands-on Impressions & previews seem generally much more positive than from SGF two months ago? (Not that I'm complaining)

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

Overall hands-on Impressions & previews seem generally much more positive than from SGF two months ago? (Not that I'm complaining)

Click to shrink...

Well we haven't seen the full range of impressions from Gamescom since the embargo actually lifts tomorrow. So it remains to be seen. However, the SGF were mostly positive as well with most previews standing on the side of cautious optimism.

 

[Wil348]

Sonic is an inherently popular property in games, there's literally no chance of that happening

Click to shrink...

Oh I don't mean in terms of sales, I mean in terms of how the game looks from the marketing and how people receive it when it when they get to play it.

 

[StraySheep]

I played it at Gamescom. I am by no means a mega Sonic fan, the last one I played was Sonic Heroes. I actually thought it was a good deal fun. But to be fair, I generally like large moody empty open worlds. The virtual levels that feel more traditional 3D Sonic offer a really nice change of pace. As to the pop in, I noticed it once but it otherwise didn't distract me. I would have to see it again, but I bet the motion blur they put on Sonic's full speed mode disguises it.

Felt like there was a ton small sections to gather rings or character upgrades around every corner, and I think I would have been compelled to stop for even more than I did if the demo wasn't timed. They also have fighting game training-level esque tutorials where they show you some of the moves Sonic can do, and it feels like this is going to be fairly deep mechanically. Whether the difficulty will require it or not, who knows.

 

[CloseTalker]

Oh I don't mean in terms of sales, I mean in terms of how the game looks from the marketing and how people receive it when it when they get to play it.

Click to shrink...

ahh gotcha. yeah, i agree the marketing doesn't seem to have done a great job. once it gets closer to release and assuming the impressions stay super positive, i'm not really worried though

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

I played it at Gamescom. I am by no means a mega Sonic fan, the last one I played was Sonic Heroes. I actually thought it was a good deal fun. But to be fair, I generally like large moody empty open worlds. The virtual levels that feel more traditional 3D Sonic offer a really nice change of pace.

Click to shrink...

Glad to hear you enjoyed it? Any thoughts on combat and how movement felt?

 

[Deleted member 93062]

Overall hands-on Impressions & previews seem generally much more positive than from SGF two months ago? (Not that I'm complaining)

Click to shrink...

I believe even the SGF impressions were positive.

I think overall the thing that I want to say is, it very much had that kind of Breath of the Wild experience and something that was really intoxicating about Breath of the Wild where I just had fun poking around this world and trying to figure things out and going at my own pace...

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I was not expecting to walk away from this demo being like, man i'm really excited to play more of that but that is 100% how I feel.

Click to shrink...

View: https://youtu.be/JqE0w7OjKyY

 

[StraySheep]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it? Any thoughts on combat and how movement felt?

Click to shrink...

Updated the original post a bit. Movement felt great. What it seems to have you doing a lot is using the boost button for Sonic to do the equivalent of an air-dodge in a 2D platformer either to extend or end platforming sequences through floating rings. It adds a level of skill to the segments of Sonic platforming that can feel more automated (being bounced from pad to pad, grinding along a rail).

I would say I am considering getting it now, so if I did that would be the first Sonic game I would be buying in... 20 years. Jesus.

 

[NotLiquid]

Generally I'm not surprised the game's previewing fairly positively. There's an inherent appeal behind Frontiers' concept that has so far played out as a mixed bag to have to watch, but it is something I can see getting thrills out of actually having to play. I may accurse the insistence on automation and sticking to mechanics that resemble more a fork of Sonic's boost style in an open world, but those gimmicks definitely give the open world a sort of flair that offers a platforming game sensibility rather than just being a task-based world where you traverse from point A to point B. Conceptually it reminds me a bit of skateboarding games like the Tony Hawk games, which in an abstract way is probably a good frame of reference for a 3D Sonic game (if only because momentum actually matters in them whereas Frontiers still lacks in this). If nothing else I also can't deny that running fast through an open world is eminently appealing, and the combat looks surprisingly better than I expected it would be.

I don't expect this to be some masterpiece game of the year and I also expect there to be some jank in the final product, but the game itself so far feels like it'll shape up to be at least good enough if it can keep up the level of quality after the initial hours.

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

Updated the original post a bit. Movement felt great. What it seems to have you doing a lot is using the boost button for Sonic to do the equivalent of an air-dodge in a 2D platformer either to extend or end platforming sequences through floating rings. It adds a level of skill to the segments of Sonic platforming that can feel more automated (being bounced from pad to pad, grinding along a rail).

I would say I am considering getting it now, so if I did that would be the first Sonic game I would be buying in... 20 years. Jesus.

Click to shrink...

Good to hear haha. Yeah I'm guessing if it reviews decently, a lot of people will find themselves in your shoes of buying a Sonic game for the first time since the Adventure games or something.

 

[Graven]

This game never looked that bad to me. I'm glad to hear it's good

Click to shrink...

Same here. I understand some of the complaints about the first area being a bit plain looking, but, saying this looked like a "fan made" project like some did was too much.

I hope this suceeds and perharps set a new groundwork for the franchise going foward.

 

[DontHateTheBacon]

This game never looked that bad to me. I'm glad to hear it's good

Click to shrink...

The IGN footage looked awful. Every other showing has looked just fine! But that IGN footage was awful, and painted a bad picture of the game.

 

[Abrasion Test]

At the very least I feel like this game has a more coherent and fully formed gameplay loop over the last few boost Sonic games. The open world + the cyberspace levels is a combo that can better support a longer game, vs. everything since Generations which basically amount to 4-5 hour games with added experimental mechanics or non-Sonic characters to try and add value.

Either way I'm hopefully this can be pulled off, but I also won't be surprised if it's a technical mess and that craters the whole thing.

 

[Ryuman]

The T3 link in the OP shows the right URL when I hover over it, but when I click it brings me to an article about the release date instead.

I like the look of the desert island at night with the glowy cacti. Too bad the screens are fairly low quality.

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

The T3 link in the OP shows the right URL when I hover over it, but when I click it brings me to an article about the release date instead.

I like the look of the desert island at night with the glowy cacti. Too bad the screens are fairly low quality.

Click to shrink...

Ah it was working. I think they realized they broke embargo and pulled it lol.

 

[BossDumDrum]

Good to see more positive hands on reception pouring in. Some of it is still not as specific as I'd like, but at least it touches on the broader details well.

 

[Ryuman]

Ah it was working. I think they realized they broke embargo and pulled it lol.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, that's probably what happened lol.

 

[AIan]

I really hope the IGN footage was from something like a tutorial island and it was just a way to get used to what you'll be doing... and the rest of the islands are structured more closely to how we'll be getting through the game. Cautiously optimistic with this one

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

I really hope the IGN footage was from something like a tutorial island and it was just a way to get used to what you'll be doing... and the rest of the islands are structured more closely to how we'll be getting through the game. Cautiously optimistic with this one

Click to shrink...

Every last bit of footage we saw outside of the desert island was from the first hour of the game.

 

[Mudo]

Damn the desert looks 100x better and more interesting than what they've been showing. Imagine if this area is how they secured the game. It looks great in those pics and impressions sound good!
Unless it's decimated in reviews I'm gonna buy it because BOTW X Sonic interests me greatly.

 

[Giant Enemy Crab]

These screenshots... It's really Phantasy star online of the Colossus 😆

 

[B. Spaceman]

I hope it ends up being good. Oh and hopefully the Switch version doesn't run like ass

 

[StraySheep]

I hope it ends up being good. Oh and hopefully the Switch version doesn't run like ass

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't count on that unless they delay the Switch version.

 

[Jinfash]

An outlet breaking the embargo to publish a piece with a title that includes "ignore the critics"? Sus and shade.