Sonic's Open Zone

 No way; I can't believe this!

There is a seismic change flying towards Sonic the Hedgehog's video game world that threatens to rejuvenate the often-derided 3D gameplay of the Sonic series from the past. What started as a fun little gimmick in Sonic Adventure, where these funnily designed stages were put together by a team clearly still figuring out how to make a 3D version of their platformer series work, had depreciated into the Sonic Forces model of level design, where every map is a straight dash across a field of clueless identical robot enemies who don't even approach you and it's genuinely rare for a single level to last longer than two minutes. There was a progress of give or take over the years, as some new features improved the gameplay of 3D Sonic outings and others became a crutch for developers to exploit until not a morsel of player agency remained, (Looking at you 'boost button') but overall the graph of 'quality over the years' has trended downwards, and now it's up to Sonic Frontier to either change all that or become the final plunge off the path to sink all credibility in Sonic Team as competent game makers. (And after Forces I think we're all teetering on that inevitability.)

And it's not even a question right now of whether or not Sonic Team are going to try and challenge themselves to change the fundamentals; they need to do at least that in order to fit the Sonic character within their new vision of the 'Open Zone'. A innocuous phrase that many have taken to believing means that Sonic's next game is going to be entirely open world, but which I personally think is a pretty term to disguise that what we're really getting is probably several unconnected hub-world areas with activities in them; like a slightly grander version of Super Mario 64. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, I think most people would welcome the chance to explore different environments before the lazy deep green hills gets a bit stale and boring, especially given how for the moment that world seems almost entirely featureless aside from the mysterious robotic creatures that Sonic is battling. 

Oh, and I should probably go forward by saying that 'Yes'; I've seen that recent gameplay footage we've been given and have successfully mined it for every bit of content that I can. And just like I hoped, I am really liking what I'm seeing for the barebones of Sonic's gameplay and even the enemies he's having shoved in his face. (At the very least) For instance, the enemy design with this metallic sheen ontop of an impressive scale that hints at the sort of 'mouse versus mountain' perspectives of Shadow of the Colossus, makes me excited. (I don't make a 'perspectives' comparison like that lightly, either.) And though the sliver rounded finish does give me vague PTSD to the utterly boring and uniform soldiers of Infinite's army in Forces, we can already see how this squad are capable of actually attacking the player; which is a significant step-up in my book. Also, I'm curious and excited that we have not seen the telltale design feature of a two spectacles sitting on a moustache in their contruction, which means these might not be Eggman's units in a Sonic game for the first time in... I think ever. I'm pretty sure every robot ever made in the Sonic franchise has been an Eggman creation up until now. God, it would be nice to have another villain to interact with. (Oh, a villain that isn't just Eggman's latest buddy who turns on him in the last act. That storyline is a tiny bit played out.)

Which isn't to say that I'm loving everything I saw in this tease. I mean we've seen that the dash boost is returning again to which I can only groan dejectedly. I understand the reasoning. My problem with the dash boost in the past is that it's always been this button to automatically inject speed into Sonic often-time making him invincible and propelling him through the stage with little effort. It's a button that completely forgoes the build of momentum which is literally the entire gameplay loop of Sonic games! If I don't need to play cleverly, chain up enemies, keep moving and hit the right slopes in order to build up my momentum, and instead I just need to hit a boost button with a bar that refills everytime I boost into rings, meaning it's not too difficult to boost for half a level unmolested; then why does the team need to bother with making intelligent game design with natural opportunities and challenges to navigate through? Answer, they don't and that's how we ended up getting Sonic Forces.

I do like the fact that for the first time ever in Sonic, it appears as though our Hedgehog is smashing into enemies with more than just his thick skull. Indeed, Sonic appears to actually throw kicks and punches when he's in clashing range which adds just that tiny bit more dynamism to the animation repertoire. Also, we've seen a sort of 'tracing' system where Sonic draws a shape around an enemy and they get caught in a feedback vortex which damages them. These are actual combat mechanics that aren't just 'lock on and double press' like usual! You don't understand, this is a revolution in game design for Sonic Team. Actually having gameplay tied around the enemies they place in their levels has been a art lost to them since the 90's; I can only imagine the level of personal and emotional growth the team had to embark on in order to rediscover the fact that player likes fighting the enemies in their levels. Maybe that's why they dropped the ball on the world so much.

When the full gameplay demo launched I think everyone sort of felt a bit of the mysterious excitement deflate when they realised 'Oh; this looks like a tech demo'. I'm not saying that the visuals don't look pretty, of course they do. Just that the world has absolutely no coherent design philosophy to it whatsoever. To compare this to Breath of the Wild is an insult. This literally looks like generic rolling hills 3D printed out of Death Stranding or something with minimalist parkour structures place haphazardly all over the place. Floating platforms here, non-sensical grind rails there, maybe we'll screw around and shove a Ubisoft-style tower to climb over there, I don't know! Do you think the team agonized over sight lines when placing mountains and obstacles? Arranging obscuring elements that challenge the player's curiosity and keeps them wondering what was behind the next corner? Or did they just load up a default space in Unreal Engine and slap together a competent Sonic Actor to run around in it?

It's such a shame because this game looks like the 'great blue hope' of the franchise, rewriting everything we thought we knew about Sonic's 3D outing; only for the whole 'world' part of the open world to be a clear after thought. I don't like to say this, but it honestly feels like Sonic Team are a small group of Indie developers who don't quite understand the basics of game design and have yet to finalize their own fundamentals, and thus are left throwing darts at a wall to see what sticks. I know what it's like to be there, I'm still very much in that position with most of my own endeavours. But I don't charge money for people to gawk at my silly unprofessional fumblings. And thought it seems almost excessively mean to chalk up this whole package as 'unprofessional' just because of how lazy the world is- I mean, the world is one of the most fundamental building blocks of this sort of game. If they can't even properly convey a purpose or intent to how they've built that world, it's hard to support the rest of the game.

Sonic Frontier is an opportunity to change the course of Sonic, and a lot of the elements I'm seeing are on the right track to do just that; but for what we've been presented with right now it's clear that the game isn't there yet. In fact, I think this game not only isn't ready to hit the launch date later this year, but it isn't even in the polishing stage; we need a reworking of huge chunks of this game. Maybe Team Sonic need another team to come in and give them a hand because I'm worried that they don't even see the problem, given that they put together this gameplay reel to show us how proud they were of their work so far. I know I'm always moaning about how the Sonic community retroactively demonises everything, but it's an exaggeration to a genuine quality deficiency in a lot of Sonic properties; we can't have this new face of Sonic start as another clear cut example of this deficiency, we just can't. So for the good of everyone, Sega and Team Sonic; delay your game. Make sure it's good first!