Welcome to the Archive site of The Sonic Stadium (2008-2023)
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Sonic Frontiers is unlike any journey Sonic's been on before. Check out what you can expect when you embark to the Starfall Islands! pic.twitter.com/HuyTqOL5y9
Included in this video are a multitude of facts such as:
Sonic is separated from his friends Amy and Tails in Cyberspace, and must find them by solving the mystery of Starfall Islands
The first Starfall Island is called Kronos
Game can be played “in order that matches your gameplay style”
Portal gears, which allow access to Cyber Space levels, are collected by defeating bosses
Vault keys achieved through completion of Cyber Space level challenges allow the player to collect the Chaos emeralds
The attack which creates a trail around enemies is named the “Cyloop”
With a little over two months until the release of Sonic Frontiers, we are likely to see more tidbits about the game emerge. Stay tuned for more information as it comes!
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Sonic Frontiers looks to be the most ambitious entry in the game series yet – and not just in the gameplay department. While Sonic’s latest adventure does aim to reinvent the tried-and-tested format with its free-roaming ‘open zone’ concept, SEGA is also keen to use the game as a stepping stone to connect the multiple entertainment universes of Sonic the Hedgehog together in a unified way. And it all starts with Sonic Frontiers’ story, itself a collaboration between Sonic Team and IDW Sonic comic writer Ian Flynn.
We were given an opportunity to sit down with Takashi Iizuka, head of Sonic Team, for a brief five minutes, to discuss the implications of Flynn’s involvement with the game and what it could mean for other Sonic universes. We also asked about those darn cute Koco as well, don’t worry.
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An image taken from this year’s Gamescom event in Germany appears to confirm that Big the Cat will feature in Sonic Frontiers.
A tweet from @Bibouboul today shows two show-goers watching an in-game scene with the massive mouser alongside Sonic, who appears to have a fishing rod in hand.
While there is no official confirmation as to Big’s role in the game, it does tease elements of the fishing game that is purported to be returning to the series.
Stay tuned for more on Frontiers as it comes!
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A whole bunch of info came out about Sonic Frontiers today, and it’s not just what we got in the trailer. A pre-order bonus, an ”Adventurer’s Treasure Box,” will be available for anyone who pre-orders. Check out the image below:
In addition to this, the game’s Steam page has also confirmed that it will be using the infamous Denuvo anti-piracy software.
Finally, it appears anyone who signs up for the Sonic Frontiers newsletter will receive codes for free in-game content. You can sign up here.
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While not quite headlining the Gamescom Opening Night Live presentation, Sonic was promised and delivered. The game is set to release on November 8 to all major platforms, and while we’ll put together a full breakdown of details, features, and speculation later, you can catch the trailer now:
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Well, we’ve got another Sonic Frontiers leak, this time via what appears to be a flier for merch. It’s hard to tell, since everything is either in Chinese or Japanese and translation tools aren’t much help.
Bare minimum, the image below gives us a new, low res look at some character art from the game. Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and the kocos are all featured, and there appear to be two silhouettes with question marks, which may be pointing towards to other yet-to-be-revealed characters for the game. These appear to be prizes for something.
The merch has a release date of November 15, which could point towards a release date of the game itself. Sonic games usually hit around this time of year, so it wouldn’t be especially surprising. The flier also makes mention of DLC, which could confirm that Sonic Frontiers will have some.
Check out the flier below:
The flier came from a Taiwanese website. You can find it here.
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After announcing a world premiere new look of the game at Opening Night Live next week, you would expect Sonic Frontiers to make some kind of formal appearance on the show floor at Gamescom 2022. Well, luckily for anyone who’s attending, those expectations were right. SEGA has sent a press release confirming a playable demo as well as a meet and greet with Takashi Iizuka.
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SEGA has formally ruled out delaying the launch of Sonic Frontiers, and reiterated its “high expectations” for the upcoming adventure game to perform well when it launches this Winter.
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Mediatonic’s ever popular (and now free-to-play) bumbling bean platforming-royale now has new Sonic cosmetics and level challenges. Previously, the game offered limited time events for the Knuckles and Sonic costumes. Both suits have returned to the game’s store, alongside costumes for Tails, Dr. Robotnik, and Super Sonic, and a “You’re Too Slow” toe tapping emote.
The surprisingly brief event will run until August 15th, so if you’re after these cosmetics and levels, you’ll need to sprint! It is not clear at this point if the costumes, emote, or levels will remain available and in rotation after the August 15 event deadline.
(Thanks to ZeBladeGunner for the video link)
The official trailer shows off the the new costumes as well as the emote and Green Hill styled level challenges, where players are collecting rings while passing through gates and bouncing on springs.
Promotional (free) missions will let the player collect gems to unlock smaller Sonic rewards, such as a name plate, a checkerboard and ring player skin, and Sonic’s iconic shoes.
In paid content, each new character costume is 800 Show-Bucks for each individually or 1,200 for two-character packs, including a Sonic/Knuckles pack and a Tails/Eggman pack. The “You’re Too Slow” emote is 400 Show-Bucks.
(Note: The prices for the “Dynamic Duo” pack appears lower than the expected price in the screenshot due to us having the Knuckles costume unlocked during a previous event.)
As a reminder, Show-Bucks can be purchased (the most cost-efficient all-Sonic-content purchase being $19.99 + 7.99 USD for 3800 Show-Bucks total at time of writing) or earned through the paid Season Pass (which costs 950 Show-Bucks, but offers up to 1,500 Show-Bucks across the entire season).
If you don’t already follow our YouTube or Twitch channels, be on the lookout for upcoming streams of the new content before it dashes off into the sunset!
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Geoff Keighley has announced that Sonic Frontiers will be receiving a world premiere neww look during Gamescom Opening Night Live!, which will run on August 23 at 7PM BST/2PM EST/11AM PST. Little else is currently known about this, though it will presumably show off some never-before-seen stuff from the game.
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Sonic the Hedgehog has come back to multiplayer game Fall Guys, and this time around the selection of wacky bean costumes based on Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are available for players on multiple game platforms. Not only that, but Dr. Eggman and Super Sonic also appears to have joined the disaster party.
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UPDATE: The full patch notes have been added to the bottom of this article.
While we love Sonic Origins here at Stadium, there’s no denying that bits of that collection released rough. Sometimes palette change animations would freeze, sometimes the game would forget that you’ve collected all the Super Emeralds, and sometimes Tails’ AI in Sonic 2 would fail to despawn him when he’s too far away, causing him to run into a wall and jump. And jump. And jump. And jump. Until you relive the PTSD of your 5-year-old sibling taking the second controller back in 1992.
We finally have our first major patch for the game, and it sounds like it addresses at least one (if not more) of the game’s major issues. MP1st (who in turn grabbed the info from PS4 update history), lists the brief patch notes that are vague in some areas, and very specific in others:
Added features to the “Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles” sound test – Fixed track mismatches in the Museum for certain music tracks included in the Classic Music Pack – Corrected an issue in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 where Tails goes off-screen and is unable to rejoin – Additional bug fixes
Track mismatches refers to a handful of mislabeled tracks included in the Classic Music DLC, such as the track names being swapped for Sonic Spinball’s bonus stage and boss fight music, or the Credits/Menu/Invincible themes in 3D Blast. And while we don’t yet have a sense of what “Additional bug fixes” encompasses, it’s a relief to know I can safely traverse Metropolis Zone without Miles mashing his distant immortal face into a wall for five straight minutes.
The patch has not propagated to every platform at time of writing, but keep an eye out over the next few days.
Comments that make the joke “but did they patch out the bad music” will not be approved, because I saw that coming a mile away, and thus it is not as clever as you think it is. Those comments should be directed at YouTube and Twitter, where they will join the 4000 people also making that joke.
Thanks to DauntlessMonk for the news tip.
UPDATE: Thanks to a commenter going by the handle “Update Name,” we were directed to SEGA Asia’s official Origins site for the full list of updates. It seems like a lot (hence us putting it at the end), but it’s fairly normal to group so many very contextual changes into a larger patch to reduce the number of patches sent out. For convenience, we’ve sorted the list by game:
Overall Fixes
Fixed a bug that was causing some songs from the Classic Music Pack to have incorrect titles displayed in the Museum.
Fixed a typo in the credits.
Removed an extra space from “PlayStation™Store” in the Simplified Chinese text. (PlayStation®5 / PlayStation®4)
Fixed a bug where exiting while connected to Xbox Live and syncing data would cause the game to crash. (Xbox Series X|S)
Fixed a bug where having multiple autosaves in a short period of time would result in them not saving correctly. (PlayStation®5 / PlayStation®4)
Fixed a bug that was causing save file contents to be different when manually saving the game. (Xbox One / Xbox Series X|S)
Fixed a bug that caused the game to freeze for about 10 seconds when going to offline mode after launching the game in online mode. (Xbox One / Xbox Series X|S)
Fixed a bug where launching the game while connected to a network, disconnecting from that network after reaching the Main Menu, playing a sound in the Museum, and then returning to the Main Menu would result in a crash after 15 seconds. (Xbox One / Xbox Series X|S)
Fixed a bug that was causing lower-performance GPUs to be automatically selected in multiple-GPU systems. (Steam / Epic Games)
Mission Mode
Fixed a bug in the “Fireball Dash” mission where it was possible to move outside of the mission area, and clearing the mission would result in the player becoming stuck.
Fixed a bug in the “Animal Rescue” mission where players would stand on top of clouds instead of bouncing or falling off them.
Fixed a bug in the “Bounce House” mission where characters would become inoperable if they collided with a Bounce Pad from the bottom when time expired.
Fixed a bug in the “Extreme! Super Sonic Finish” mission where falling off the platform shortly after reaching the goal would cause the camera to lock and prevent the player from progressing.
Fixed a bug in the “Aerial Attack” mission where players would get stuck on blocks and be unable to move.
Fixed a bug in the “Slippery Swim” mission that was causing invisible blocks to appear in areas they aren’t supposed to appear in.
Sonic the Hedgehog
Fixed a bug where retrying a stage in Classic Mode from My Data and getting a Game Over would make players get stuck at the Title Screen.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Fixed a bug where Tails would not return from outside the screen and a sound effect would continually play.
Fixed a bug that caused the sound effect for collecting Rings to be interrupted when collecting them in quick succession.
Fixed a bug that caused Tails’ flight sound effect to continually play after moving to the next stage if you were flying with Tails during the transition.
Fixed a bug in 2 Player VS mode where the time would never expire if it reached 0 during a player mistake.
Story Mode: Fixed a bug where the transition time from Mystic Cave Zone Act 2 to Hidden Palace 2 would be added to the player’s Best Time.
Fixed a bug that was causing crashes due to incorrect object calculations.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles
Added a function to Sound Test.
Adjusted Competition Mode on the Nintendo Switch™ so that it can be played without registering two Joy-Cons™ / Pro controllers. *Made registration for two Joy-Cons™ / Pro controllers in Time Attack unnecessary, and made it possible to cancel controller registration in other modes.
Fixed a bug where leaving many Item Boxes in front of the sub-boss of Hydrocity Zone Act 1 would cause the game to crash when defeating the sub-boss and moving on to the next Act.
Fixed a bug that was causing players to get stuck when playing a Special Stage from the level select menu after playing Time Attack Mode.
Fixed a bug in Competition mode that caused players to go back a lap when they took damage or fell out of the stage.
Fixed a bug in Angel Island Zone Act 1 that teleported players when the island is set on fire.
Fixed a bug in Carnival Night Zone Act 2 where the boss would leave the area if hit by a mid-air attack while entering.
Fixed a bug that caused a sound effect to continually play when the player transitioned stages after defeating the boss of Death Egg Zone Act 1.
Fixed a bug in Flying Battery Zone Act 1 that caused a sound effect to continually play if a player transitioned stages when close to a magnetic object.
Fixed a bug in Competition Mirror Mode that was causing the courses to not be mirrored.
Fixed a bug that caused Sonic and Tails to get stuck on a burning rope in the middle of Angel Island Zone Act 2, which made it impossible to progress.
When starting in Classic Mode with a save file where the game has been cleared, entering and exiting a Special Stage without touching a checkpoint would cause the game time to incorrectly start at 9:59.
When starting the game as Sonic with a cleared-game save data file, performing certain actions in Angel Island Zone Act 1 would cause the player to be incorrectly moved to Knuckles’ boss area route.
Fixed a bug in Classic Mode where performing certain actions in the boss fight of Lava Reef Zone Act 2 would make the camera shift, and the character would fall out of the stage.
Fixed a bug in Angel Island Zone Act 1 where performing certain actions after the stage is set on fire caused the player to lose a life.
Fixed a bug in Lava Reef Zone Act 2 that allowed players to avoid the falling boulder that moves them to the boss stage.
Fixed a bug in the boss battle of Hydrocity Zone Act 2 that caused an invisible ceiling to appear, which prevented players from jumping higher.
Fixed a bug where immediately opening the pause menu when entering the first Special Ring in Mushroom Hill Zone Act 1 and selecting “Restart” would cause players to start the stage from an unnatural position.
Starting the game in Classic Mode using saved data with a recorded Time Over in Angel Island Zone Act 1, and then getting a Game Over would cause players to immediately lose a life upon reaching the sub-boss.
Fixed a bug where opening the pause menu just before entering a Special Stage and then selecting “Restart” would move the player to a different Act.
Fixed a bug where coins would be increased in debug mode.
Fixed a bug where the BGM in Special Stages would slow down after collecting 50 Rings.
When starting the game in Classic Mode on a save file with a recorded Time Over, the Time would not reset from 9:59 upon clearing a stage.
Fixed a bug in Classic Mode of Death Egg Zone Act 2 where opening the pause menu and selecting “Restart” after transitioning to the boss stage would cause the player restart the boss fight with 0:10 Time.
Fixed a bug in Mushroom Hill Zone Act 2 that caused textures of objects to not display correctly. (Nintendo Switch™)
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Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit, a fan-made remake of one of Sonic’s Game Gear releases, is officially finished and available for everyone to play! Download it here.
The fangame, has been in development for roughly five years, and completely remakes the Game Gear adventure with brand new levels, remade music, brand new bosses and special stages, a plot that recontextualizes the game as a follow up to Sonic & Knuckles, and even a fully fleshed out multiplayer mode with multiple game play types and a campaign! The game also has it’s share of brand new surprises for anyone familiar with the Game Gear original.
We’ve already had a few days with the game, and while our review is forthcoming, I can confirm here and now that the game is superb. We’ve previewed both of the game’s demos over the last few years, which you can check out here and here. We also interviewed Copeland a few years ago, which you can find here.
You can expect some articles, videos and streams of the game from us over the next few days.
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It looks like we’ve got a new mobile Sonic game incoming from SEGA Hardlight, if a new job listing on Gameindustry.biz’s jobs board is any indication. The job listing is for a lead artist, who will work on a “new Sonic game,” who will, among other things, need to be ready to “push the limits mobile gaming to near-console levels.” While not technically an official confirmation, it might as well be.
The job listing also includes another interesting detail: this new mobile title will be apparently be an “ambitious” narrative driven platforming game. This would be new for a Sonic mobile game, which typically focus on very arcade-y game play (such as autorunners or racing games), that only occasionally have a story mode, and have never tackled traditional platforming. Beyond this detail, little else is currently known about the project.
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Fancy getting your hands on Sonic Frontiers before the game is out this Winter? Well if you live in the UK (that’s us!), you’re in luck, as there will be public playtests of the upcoming Open-Zone platformer at the EGX game show in September 2022.
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Weeks after Sonic Origins’ release, a patch for the game has finally been confirmed to be underway. In a response to a fan on Twitter, Sonic Social Media Manager Katie Chrzanowski revealed that one is in the works:
“Hey! Thanks for the patience! The team’s been listening and is working on fixing a variety of issues right now. We’ll make sure to get some more official messaging out once we have more info for everyone. 🙂
Glitches in the game have ranged from common ones, such as Tails being unable to respawn near Sonic in Sonic 2, to seemingly random glitches that can do everything from random freezes to broken scripted sequences, to the water in Sonic 3 remaining white after a character jumps in with the electric shield.
We should note that, aside from the Tails spawning glitch (which appears to be a universal issues), we at Sonic Stadium have largely had very glitch-free experiences with the game. I had a scripted sequence break once, our top streamer GX experienced the game briefly forgetting he had the super emeralds during his 9-hour story mode stream, and site boss Dreadknux didn’t encounter anything while he was playing the game for his review.
Nevertheless, prominent people in the Sonic community have encountered and recorded the above glitches, and the issues were prevalent enough to get a response from Headcannon’s Simon Thomley.
Stay tuned to Sonic Stadium for further details on the patch, and Sonic Origins as a whole!
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E-102 Gamma is now the latest character to arrive in Sonic Forces Mobile, via the event ”Operation: Gamma. The event is set to run until July 19, and like other SFM events, has players completing missions to earn cards towards unlocking the charater.
Gamma can be unlocked with just 30 cards, and has been categorized as a ”super rare” character, meaning it will be possible to unlock him and level him up with character cards after the event concludes. Gamma has a speed rating of 8, an acceleration rating of 8, and a strength speed of 6. His items include two originals, ”missile launch” and ”laser blaster,” and one move derived from other robot characters, ”electro boost.”
Missile Launch fires a steady stream of missiles down the track, and can be interrupted if you are attacked. Laster Blaster can lock onto another character and attack them from above, and can be upgraded to target multiple enemies. Electro Boost is speed boost that also attracts rings and zaps opponents.
SEGA Hardlight also revealed Paladin Amy, though its currently unknown when she will be available. Bluwolf has datamined the game and gotten Paladin Amy’s model. You can download it in the tweet below:
I've also ripped and released Paladin Amy from Sonic Forces: Speed Battle as well.
We’ve also gone ahead and posted the images Paladin Amy’s model as well:
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Somewhere among the many farming games, the 3000 hours of Persona games, and revisionist history PAC-MAN, we got a few more details on Sonic Frontiers:
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Headcannon studio developer Simon Thomley (aka Stealth) has expressed dissatisfaction with his experience working with SEGA on the recently-released Sonic Origins, claiming that the publisher made modifications to his work that led to the existence of bugs and glitches in the game.
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Over a year after its announcement, Sonic Origins is finally available to play as of June 23, 12AM EST. It can be purchased on Xbox, Playstation, and Switch platforms for $40, or $45 for the deluxe version that comes with $8 of DLC (including music from other Sonic games and additional animations in the menu).
We’ve been covering this game for the last few days. You can check out our review here, and find a bunch of footage from the game here.
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Continuing in IGN First’s coverage of Sonic Frontiers, prolific Sonic writer Ian Flynn spoke to IGN regarding his experience writing an entirely new Sonic game for the first time.
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The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
A list of Sonic Origins’ trophies has finally been released, and its a pretty sizable list. We’ve got bronze, silver, and gold trophies, as well as a single platinum trophy for completing everything. You can check out the list below:
Complete Clear (Platinum) – Get All the Trophies!
Welcome to Sonic the Hedgehog (Bronze) – Watch the Opening for Sonic the Hedgehog
Welcome to Sonic CD (Bronze) – Watch the Opening for Sonic CD
Welcome to Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Bronze) – Watch the Opening for Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Welcome to Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Bronze) – Watch the Opening for Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Beware Moto Bugs! (Bronze) – Defeat 10 Motobugs in Sonic the Hedgehog
Bubbly Breath (Bronze) – Use air bubbles in Sonic the Hedgehog
Time Traveller (Bronze) – Travel to the past or future in Sonic CD
Shut Down Metal Sonic (Bronze) – Win a race against Metal Sonic in Sonic CD
Beware Stingers! (Bronze) – Defeat 10 Stingers in Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Lucky Hedgehog (Bronze) – Get the Jackpot in Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Beware Rhinobots! (Bronze) – Defeat 10 Rhinobots in Sonic 3 and Knuckles
Easy Peasy with Shields! (Bronze) – Collect all three types of shields in Sonic 3 and Knuckles
Ring Collector (Bronze) – Collect a total of 1000 Rings
Gallant Spin Dash (Bronze) – Defeat 30 Enemies with the Spin Dash
Newbie Hero (Bronze) – Defeat a total of 50 Enemies
Museum Time (Bronze) – View a Premium Collection item from the Museum
Very First Mission Clear (Bronze) – Clear 1 Mission
Knuckles the Echidna (Bronze) – Glide as Knuckles
Miles ‘Tails’ Prower (Bronze) – Fly as Tails
Boss Rush Attempt (Bronze) – Try the boss rush from any of the titles
Sonic the Hedgehog Mission Master (Silver) – Clear 10 Sonic the Hedgehog Missions with a S Rank
Sonic CD Mission Master (Silver) – Clear 10 Sonic CD missions with a S Rank
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Mission Master (Silver) – Clear 10 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 missions with a S Rank
S3 & K Mission Master (Silver) – Clear 10 Sonic 3 and Knuckles missions with a S Rank
To the Mirror World (Silver) – Play Mirror Mode
Movie Maniac (Silver) – Unlock 6 movie collection items with coins
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New footage seen from Summer Game Fest appears to confirm that Sky Sanctuary will feature as one of the Cyberspace stages in Sonic Frontiers.
New images from the show, shared by Saihati72 on twitter, appear to confirm the Sonic & Knuckles stage, revisited in Sonic Generations, through the presence of the ascending Death Egg in the background.
While the zoomed-in footage is of low resolution, the image of the Death Egg is now undeniable.
A new look at a cyberspace level from Sonic Frontiers. seems like Sky Sanctuary with the Death Egg being in the background, seemingly confirming the reuse of level themes and assets from Sonic Generations. #SonicFrontierspic.twitter.com/lahxd2mEFA
Fans have been quick to point out previously that there are many similarities to the Generations design, to the point that it appears Frontiers may be using recycled assets from the 11 year-old title.
UPDATE: Another Twitter user has shared a second video that displays the stage a little clearer in the background. Thanks to ‘JL’ via email for the news tip!
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In an interview with IGN, Sonic Frontiers Director Morio Kishimoto talked about the game’s length and difficulty curve.
In terms of length, Kishimoto confirmed that the game would be around 20-30 hours, with full competition taking roughly double the time. Kishimoto stated that the game’s length was part of the reason they decided to make Sonic upgradeable throughout the adventure, in order to keep players invested.
Kishimoto also talked about the differences in the difficulty curve between Frontiers and past Sonic games. Specifically, Kishimoto mentioned how Sonic games typically become more difficult as they progress, and how such a curve was no longer necessary with Frontiers:
“In previous Sonic titles, we had to gradually make the stages more difficult in order to reach an amount of play time that would satisfy players. It is natural for level-based platformers to become more difficult as you progress. However, for Sonic games the problem has always been that higher difficulty can get in the way of the game’s sense of speed. In Sonic Frontiers, the Open Zone offers a lot of content already, so raising the difficulty in order to increase the play time was no longer necessary. From start to finish, we were able to maintain a sense of speed with ideal level design for a Sonic game.”
For the full interview, check out the source below.
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In an interview with Axios, Takashi Iizuka confirmed that the team has been working on Sonic Frontiers remotely since the COVID-19 pandemic forced Japan into lockdown in 2020.
Iizuka had positive things to say about the team working remotely, noting that developers benefited from a safe working environment and that the ease of digital communication actually accelerated much of their work. Sonic Team has continued to work remotely ever since.
Iizuka has noted one negative impact of remote work, however: it’s difficult for everyone on the team to see the big picture. “If you’re just on the team, you’re kind of doing your own work,” said Iizuka, “And you don’t get to look over your shoulder at the other group doing the other work, so not everyone on the team shares the whole vision of what the game is.”
Iizuka also confirmed that development of Frontiers began as early as late 2017, as the team sought fresh ideas after hitting a wall with the old Sonic format.
Check out Iizuka’s full interview with Axios in the source below.
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The details for Sonic Frontiers have continued to pour in thanks to numerous interviews with Sonic Team, and they are shedding further light on the developer’s vision for the game.
In an interview with Axios, Takashi Iizuka described the structure of the game’s world, and why they were calling it “open zone.” Iizuka thinks the current reaction from fans stems from the simplicity of what’s been seen thus far. “This is just the first island. Maybe it’s going to feel easy. But later on, you will need [more] technical skills to get to certain places.”
Meanwhile, in an interview with IGN, game director Morio Kishimoto further elaborated on what Sonic Team is going for with this open zone design. Kishimoto described Sonic Frontiers’ open zones as a world map that is entirely playable. He elaborated:
“A playable world map that includes stage-like elements is something that hasn’t really been done before, so we had to come up with a new name. What is often defined as a World in other level-based platformers is called a Zone in Sonic games, so we took that and combined it with Open, which refers to a freely explorable field. So that’s what Open Zone stands for.”
“Super Mario Bros. 3 was released in Japan in 1988. I believe this was the first game to introduce a world map. The system has been used by countless platformers since, even to this day. A true evolution of this structure is what we see as the essence of Sonic Frontiers’ field. We wanted to provide a next-gen level-based platforming experience. But how do we evolve a level-based platformer like Sonic into this new Open Zone? That’s what Sonic Frontiers is all about.”
In essence, what is meant to separate open zones from hub worlds and world maps is that these locations are not just a way to access levels, but are filled with level elements themselves. “The Open Zone stands central in Sonic Frontiers’ gameplay, and the game’s levels exist as elements within this area. From grind rails to platform objects, loops and so on, the Open Zone is packed with the athletic action we love in Sonic games,” said Kishimoto.
One important thing that Kishimoto noted, which is likely key to Sonic Team’s approach to the game, is that this is not meant to compete with other open world games. This is still being made as a platformer, first and foremost, meant to rival the likes of Mario and Kirby.
When discussing puzzles, Kishimoto noted that most of them would be optional, as the central focus of the game was Sonic’s sense of speed. This would seem to indicate that much if what we’ve seen earned from puzzles may not be needed to complete the game. The puzzles themselves are going to be diverse, ranging from brain teasers, to tests of “action techniques,” to mini games.
Sonic Frontiers is currently scheduled to release Holiday 2022. Check out the full interviews in the source links below!
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A number of outlets seem to have additional gameplay footage following Sonic Frontiers’ appearance and hands-on impressions at Summer Game Fest. The footage itself looks to be samples for use with video impressions (such as NintendoEverything’s Hands-On), but the clean five minutes of footage has also surfaced (via SEGABits):
Among new views of the opening area, Sonic deals with a few more significant combat encounters that vary quite a bit. Sonic performs homing-attacks on a bipedal blade-wielding enemy, and counters its defensive move with some sort of rapid swing to get behind it.
In the following encounter, Sonic fights a towering drill enemy, breaking its lower segments and avoiding a spinning ring the enemy uses like a hammer. In both scenarios, a little white line (like some sort of spider-sense) appears to show Sonic when an enemy is about to unleash an attack. Further, both victories earn Sonic a “gear” that we’ve come to understand help unlock the more traditional stages in the game. A mysterious voice (not Amy) states “Use the gear as you have done before.”
A later encounter with a smaller enemy shows a distinct counter move, where after fighting a red ring-shaped enemy, it begins spinning like a top before Sonic deals a finishing blow with a cinematic kick.
Previously unseen world elements include platforms that elevate when you hit them with homing attack and a field full of monolith-style upright tablets. We previously saw changes in time of day and weather, but those features of the world are really highlighted here, with Sonic approaching the blade enemy as rain pools in the arena. Later, Sonic navigates floating platforms as the sun sets in the background. We’re also reintroduced to the large tower that Sonic scaled in the first IGN footage, but this time, Sonic runs further up one of the spires at the top to show off the scope of the land past distant cliffs.
Sonic Frontiers is still months away from release, and while this drip feed of info about this new play style has been frustrating, this new footage has a few small bits to be optimistic about if you’re looking for more involved combat and bizarre places to explore. Keep an eye out here on Sonic Stadium, as we’ll be rounding up the many hands-on impressions coming out of Summer Game Fest soon.
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Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka has revealed that the studio’s past work contributed to Sonic Frontiers’ ‘Open Zone’ gameplay approach – and has expressed an interest in using learnings from the upcoming title to make a new entry in the Sonic Adventure series.
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Today’s Sonic Official on YouTube confirmed a long-standing concern about Sonic 3’s soundtrack in Sonic Origins. During the stream, Katie Chrzanowski, social media manager for SEGA, notes that the game will not have all the game’s original tracks. Instead, the game will have new original-hardware adaptations of the songs composed by Jun Senoue.
I know one question that we’ve seen over and over is, what is the situation on the music in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. So, while unfortunately we can’t use all of the original sounds from the SEGA Genesis version of the game, Jun Senoue’s been working really hard to adapt the original music that was composed in 1993 for Sonic Origins, and he’s been going so far as reproducing it with the same soundchip as the SEGA Genesis and using is own digital audio tape collection to make this, like, as faithful to the originals as possible.
Katie Chrzanowski, Sonic Official, Season 6 Episode 3, about 36:00
Sonic 3 has long had issues with re-releases due to music contributed by Michael Jackson and Brad Buxer. This includes Carnival Night Zone, Ice Cap Zone, Launch Base Zone, the Multiplayer menu, the Sonic 3 Act 1 boss music, and the Staff Roll. Unreleased beta versions of Sonic 3, as well as the 1997 Windows PC version of the game, used significantly different compositions in place of the tracks.
While it’s a shame that we won’t be hearing the iconic sounds of Ice Cap once again, it’s definitely encouraging that we’ll be getting new versions of the alternate songs from Senoue, who contributed to the original soundtracks of both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. Though if you’re really itching for those original sounds… probably a good idea to keep an eye out on the modding scene after it launches.
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The mystery surrounding Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s soundtrack – and Michael Jackson’s involvement – has once again been thrown into the air thanks to a recent interview with Sonic 3 co-composer and Jackson’s longtime collaborator Brad Buxer.
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We finally got a bunch of new Sonic Frontiers details today, but…not from the place we were expecting. While today’s Sonic Central gave us a brief look at a single boss, IGN’s hands-on of Sonic Frontiers has finally given us an idea of what the game will actually be.
First of all, the impressions themselves: the previewer, Mitchell Saltzman, said he played the game for about four hours. He was mostly pretty positive about his experience, saying “This early build answered the one question I had on my mind: will Sonic’s one-of-a-kind game play translate to an open world? The answer is a resounding absolutely.” He did encounter a lot of pop-in, however, and also noted that there were still bugs that needed to be quashed, though he also pointed out that this was all from an early build of the game. The large bosses were the roughest part of his experience: he was thrown off the boss’s arms far too often, and sometimes didn’t have enough momentum to actually attack the boss’s head despite reaching the top.
In addition to his hands-on impressions, we also got a lot of details on the game itself. The game’s story starts with Sonic, Tails and Amy being sucked through a wormhole. Sonic then finds himself alone on a mysterious island. Sonic’s only companion appears to be an AI voice, which tells Sonic to gather the chaos emeralds. According to Saltzman, Sonic Team is intentionally going for a “mysterious mood.”
Smaller, linear, more traditional bite-sized levels were also confirmed. These levels are accessed by obtaining “portal gears,” which are dropped by the game’s giant bosses. The levels have optional goals, including collecting red rings and beating them within a certain time limit. Completing these goals will earn players “vault keys,” which are needed to unlock the chaos emeralds. Yes, this does appear to be details on Frontiers’ game play loop! Saltzman elaborated on this via Twitter, stating “The flow of the game is basically: Explore open world > solve puzzles to open up map > find collectibles to improve stats > fight world bosses to earn portal gears > use portal gears to unlock linear Sonic levels > complete linear Sonic levels to unlock chaos emeralds.”
Finally, Saltzman also went into detail on the game’s combat. We got a name for that move where Sonic runs around enemies (the cyloop), and we now know that Sonic can also perform dodges and parries. Many of the enemies can be defeated in a variety of ways. In the example he gave, he stated one enemy could either be attacked when it left itself open to attack, or Sonic could create an opening by either using the parry or his cyloop move. He also confirmed that the game will have a exp and a skill tree. When talking about the skill tree specifically, he said the game had a nice sense of power progression, even during the four hours he had with it.
You can watch IGN’s hands-on impressions below:
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One of the more smaller details from the Sonic Central video presentation was news in regards to a Fall Guys collaboration. Sonic and Knuckles costumes have already been in the game before, so that isn’t new. What is new is that a Tails costume is on the way.
The strange thing is that, despite gameplay footage of the Fall Guys collaboration being shown, the Sonic Central broadcast did not show the Tails Costume whatsoever. Nevertheless, if you haven’t tried out the Sonic Fall Guys content yet, now may be a good time. You’ll be able to check it all out this August.
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Today’s Sonic Central gave us a look at another one of the game’s massive bosses, which is giving off serious Starlight Carnival vibes. This new boss appears to move through the environment, leaving a path made out of energy in its wake. Eventually the path becomes an arena.
You can check out the 30 seconds of footage below:
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SEGA’s long running series of animated Sonic shorts is set to continue with a new Sonic Frontiers animated special, Sonic Frontiers Prologue. Set before the events of the game, the special will focus on Knuckles. The sneak peak, shown during today’s Sonic Central broadcast, show’s Knuckles standing stoically in front of the Master Emerald during a rain storm. Check out a screenshot of it below:
Nothing else is currently known, but Ian Flynn did hint that something he is involved in would be shown, so it seems quite likely he wrote the script for this. We’ll update this article when the status of his involvement is known.
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We’ve just been hit with a flurry of mobile Sonic game news thanks to today’s Sonic Central livestream! There are several updates coming to two of SEGA Hardlight’s key titles, Sonic Forces and Sonic Dash, including the arrival of Super Shadow and Mephiles as playable characters.
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