One of many many, many factors of rivalry amongst followers with regards to Sonic Frontiers has to do with its our on-line world levels. A few of them reimagine previous ranges reminiscent of Inexperienced Hill and Chemical Plant, which many followers rightly see as redundant because the final decade has seen most Sonic installments doing the very same factor. Alternatively, a number of followers acknowledged that they might discover the reuse of degree themes acceptable so long as these levels boasted unique layouts. Sadly for the latter group, it appears to be like just like the our on-line world levels in Sonic Frontiers copy not simply previous themes, however previous degree layouts as effectively.
It began yesterday when footage of the Gamescom demo first dropped on-line. When analyzing footage of the primary our on-line world stage, which makes use of Inexperienced Hill’s aesthetics, eagle-eyed followers observed that its structure intently matches that of Windmill Isle Act 1, the tutorial stage of Sonic Unleashed. Word that this side-by-side comparison edits elements of the Frontiers footage to make it sync up higher with the Unleashed clip.
Then extra footage of the our on-line world ranges dropped at this time, and followers discovered but extra conspicuous cases of reused degree layouts. One other Inexperienced Hill our on-line world degree plays out almost exactly like Trendy Sonic’s Inexperienced Hill stage from Sonic Generations, albeit with sure parts minimize and the enormous Chopper nowhere to be discovered. In the same vein, one of many Chemical Plant our on-line world levels borrows much of the layout from Generations’ trendy rendition of the identical degree. Retrospective evaluation of yesterday’s Sky Sanctuary our on-line world stage even reveals bits of degree design from Unleashed‘s Windmill Isle Act 2. To date, the one unique our on-line world stage we’ve got seen is this city one.
it is the very same degree design#SonicFrontiers pic.twitter.com/3dwsGPmzrG
— Mikester (@mikesterp1) August 24, 2022
Going again to the previous as soon as once more
Contemplating that the our on-line world levels make up such a good portion of Sonic Frontiers, seeing the developer reuse so many degree belongings from previous video games comes off as regarding, to say the least. On the identical time, although, we will level to a story justification. It appears the rationale for gamers to be working round Inexperienced Hill and Chemical Plant for the umpteenth time is due to Sonic’s jumbled recollections. The reused degree design possible simply exists in service of no matter story Sonic Frontiers goes for right here.
Even with the reminiscence purpose, the rehashed degree layouts discovered within the our on-line world ranges of Sonic Frontiers nonetheless come throughout as disappointing. In spite of everything, Sonic Generations noticed gamers revisiting outdated ranges as a result of space-time shenanigans, and that sport nonetheless had unique degree layouts that pushed Sonic‘s gameplay to new heights.
To make issues worse, the reused ranges don’t even look as pleasurable to play as they had been in previous video games. All of them have simplified degree geometry and nowhere close to as a lot dynamism. We could have solely seen a small fraction of Sonic Frontiers‘ our on-line world levels, nevertheless it appears extremely possible that these issues will persist within the later ones, which is an actual disgrace.
