New footage of Sonic Frontiers is for the first time accompanied by some commentary, and not all of it is positive.
had their own version of a Nintendo Direct on Tuesday afternoon, called Sonic Central, but it didn’t really reveal anything of importance, as it rushed through previews of upcoming games like , the blue blur’s various mobile games, and a dizzying array of new merchandise – from energy drinks to Pez dispensers.
You can watch the whole thing below but there was surprisingly little time spent on Sonic Frontiers, while a teaser of an animated prologue was only a few seconds long and merely confirmed the presence of Knuckles.
Those familiar with the Sonic cycle will know that revealing more of Sonic’s friends is a key part of the process, with a new, and much more revealing, hands-on preview mentioning that Tails and Amy are also in the game.
The new preview was based on four hours of hands-on time and tried to emphasise that despite looking so similar to Zelda: Breath Of The Wild the game is intended to be a pure actioner and not the usual role-playing or action adventure game you’d normally expect of an open world title.
Given it still has puzzles and a relatively slow pace, when not running, the distinction seemed relatively arbitrary, especially as the game was described as ‘sombre’ and having a ‘mysterious’ atmosphere.
IGN plans to run previews and features on Sonic Frontiers all month but this is the first one that’s offered any kind of commentary or criticism.
Although the game is described as a ‘giant playground’ and a lot of fun, especially race missions, there is criticism of the ‘jarring’ pop-in and how the traditional sci-fi platforms seem out of place next to the realistic looking game world.
The worst part of the game though, is apparently the boss bottles, which rely on what sounds like unpredictable physics and are very frustrating even when you know what you’re supposed to be doing.
It seems like that may be more due to bugs than anything else though, with the commentator mention that there are lots of glitches in general.
There may be time to fix these, but the game is meant to be out this year and while it’s likely to be a Christmas release it’s still going to be a close run thing if the problems are deep-rooted.
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