Analysis of Sonic Frontiers' Plot Newbie's Perspective
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00:00Sonic Frontiers. With ominous music, the story wastes my time for no reason and eventually shows Eggman putting a metal thing on something to light it up.
00:11Why did he know to go here? I guess he was reading about ancient myths on the internet.
00:17This reminds me of his first cutscene in Adventure 2, but it doesn't hold a candle to it.
00:23The lazily named Ancients, with the same name as those in the Sonic Boom game, have secrets he wants.
00:30He grabs the metal disc, trying to keep it from getting lost, and gets pulled into another dimension.
00:36All because he didn't have a robot do this like Metal Sonic, when he usually has robots do all the work for him.
00:44It's nice of Amy to go with Sonic and Tails in the adventure, but I'm wondering why, because she was perfectly content to not go with him in most of the games before this, despite it being out of character for SA2 Amy.
00:58Eventually, the plane gets sucked into a portal to another dimension or something, like in Sonic Rush Adventure, and it'll hopefully be explained why to stop being so arbitrary that I feel nothing about it.
01:11Sonic wakes up and wastes my time until a voice from nowhere says he's awesome because he escaped cyberspace from his own Mary Sue powers.
01:21I don't remember him boosting away from it, after all. It's just because he's the main character.
01:27He tells him to find the Emeralds and destroy the Titans to tear down the barriers between universes, and Sonic wishes he was given context.
01:37He explains just fine why he decides to do this anyways, because some direction is better than none.
01:44And what he should also add is that he's used to getting the Chaos Emeralds and having it work out for him, so he would've looked for them anyways.
01:51And Titan sounds like the name of an evil monster.
01:55If a Titan tried to kill him, he would've killed it anyways.
02:00This plot's inoffensive so far, other than the slow pacing, but I'm still noticing that it's Generations 2.
02:08And at least in Generations, it could've made sense that Eggman told the Time Eater not to defeat Sonic 2, because you wanted him to go through all those levels and boss fights.
02:21There's nothing to say about the cutscenes with no dialogue.
02:25The voice also tells Sonic to use something to go to the digital dimension, and that he needs more gears.
02:32And then he calls it Cyberspace. Isn't that what those levels in Sonic Advance 2 and 3 were, and that Shadow level?
02:40How needlessly complicated that this is a different universe from that.
02:44Since in this one, Sonic goes through levels he's already at least aware of for no reason.
02:49At least Generations had an understandable excuse for it.
02:53This is so convoluted that I have to just assume it's levels he's already at least aware of, because one of the levels is a level only Shadow went through.
03:03And this game makes us have to assume Sonic might've gone through it offscreen.
03:08The cutscene takes a needlessly long time handing Sonic a blue emerald.
03:13It's so boring to see the cutscene that just slowly shows off the boring landscape ahead with nothing happening.
03:21It seems confusing that Hearts come out of Sonic before a trap gets destroyed freeing Amy.
03:26Sort of, because she's really in another universe, but her consciousness is in Sonic's.
03:32There's nothing interesting about the cutscene where they talk.
03:36Sonic points out that he dealt with Zappy's stuff before, and tells her she made a good call.
03:41What Zappy's stuff?
03:44This is literally just a measly video game plot.
03:49Sonic Advance 2 and Generations and even Pinball Party already did a plot where Sonic just has to save all of his friends.
03:57What is the cutscene that eventually shows Sage for the first time drag on so long?
04:03There's no dialogue until she tells him to leave for the first of a billion times.
04:08She expects him to follow her order for no reason.
04:12You'd think she'd know him better considering that Eggman made her.
04:16The coding for who he is would already be in her.
04:20And like a generic villain, she hopes the Titan would destroy him.
04:24Sonic gets slapstick and eventually Sage vanishes and the cutscene ends.
04:29And then he wakes up.
04:31I guess she was too stupid to check his pulse when the knowledge of that and how many times he survived stuff should already be in her programming.
04:38She's nothing I haven't seen before when it comes to main villain henchmen, and all of the previous Eggman sidekicks were more interesting and comical.
04:46Being hammy characters who made a big impression and had unforgettable voices.
04:51Amy gets asked who her friend is, and she takes a needless pause before giving exposition on the Coco that have nothing to do with the plot and Sonic.
05:00It doesn't seem like the Coco can talk.
05:03So how does Amy know anything about this one?
05:07I just have to assume that either the Coco are telepathic or she was conveniently born with the ability to read their minds.
05:14Why does the cutscene waste my time showing Eggman walk a few steps while saying nothing?
05:19Why does he think this digital dimension is more advanced than his own?
05:24It at least tries to be charming when he says, note to self, don't admit that's anyone.
05:29He says he wants to quantify the data here, somehow.
05:33I can tell this dialogue is by Ian Flynn because Eggman in all of the previous games usually talks like a normal person.
05:40But here he talks like he's trying to overcompensate for losing ownership of the world by talking like he swallowed a dictionary.
05:46So at least you can explain it, but how are kids supposed to be entertained by this?
05:51Amy gives exposition about the digital keys and towers she found that are made to hold the Chaos Emeralds.
05:57Why is she talking like it'd be a surprise that the ancients wanted to use the magical jewels of the world?
06:04Amy wants Sonic to leave the kids of the Coco back to her.
06:08And Sonic's happy to do so because he's in no hurry.
06:12Unlike in SA1 where he was in a hurry to get all of the emeralds before Eggman.
06:16Wait, shouldn't he be in a hurry to save all of his friends?
06:20Because they're conscious while captured?
06:23This is finally another use of Amy being the type to care about the little things and do good deeds that don't just involve beating Eggman.
06:31It's nice to see the Cocos reunite.
06:34But why did they turn into light and go into the sky?
06:37They're just magical ghosts who arbitrarily are like that.
06:41If this Coco can move, why haven't the Coco all found their kids already?
06:45Why'd they need help?
06:47Every single time Sage appears from this point on, she's the same generic boring villain she was before.
06:54When she changes even a tiny bit, I'll mention it of course.
06:58You'd think she'd learn her lesson after the first time.
07:02Amy's wasting her breath trying to talk reason into her.
07:06Sage thinks love is too vague in this definition.
07:09Even though she can already speak English, then she'd already have a definition of love straight out of the Webster English Dictionary.
07:16So this feels forced because of the punctuation mark right after the word love, implying that's an actual definition.
07:23Amy knows that Sonic would enjoy exploring, having good chemistry with him.
07:28Why does she say amour instead of lover?
07:30It's not even spelled right.
07:32She wants Sonic to get rid of all the wild grass in the farm by simply running around, even though he's not doing that in its spindash form.
07:40Not even Mike Gallagher would write this.
07:43It's not like he burns it away from friction because that'd cause a huge wildfire to spread.
07:49Amy says something must've ruined this land.
07:52Why else would the Cocoa be an ancient species with only the ghosts remaining instead of still farming the land?
07:59Sonic's so self-absorbed, it took until now for him to ask Amy how she's feeling.
08:04Amy says she feels lighter than air, and it reassures her.
08:08There's just so little to say about this plant.
08:12They shouldn't have so many cutscenes with a thin plot.
08:15The cyberspace levels seem to end so fast, it makes me wonder why people demonize Sonic Forces for having levels as short as they usually are,
08:23while conveniently forgetting that the first level in Sonic 1 was 30 seconds long.
08:28Eggman's shown telling Sage to keep looking for a way to get him out of here.
08:32Why does he tell her to keep up the good work when he's still trapped?
08:36And she didn't kill Sonic.
08:38From his perspective, she's doing a terrible job, and it's no excuse for taking a long time to evaluate all safe options when she's an AI.
08:47She should think faster than him.
08:50The Eggman I know would just be irritated and impatient.
08:54But instead he's already showing the signs that Sage is favoritized by the writers.
08:59Sage says she's extending the range of her control of the relics, so Eggman says commendable, and finally shows impatience with her.
09:08She thinks it's too dangerous to get him out somehow, and he naturally says unacceptable and takes off.
09:14The only way she could get him out would be to make another portal.
09:17How would going through a portal be dangerous?
09:20Wouldn't she know how to make a portal just like the one he went through because of the data he put into her and the data in cyberspace?
09:27Why wouldn't she tell him why it's too dangerous?
09:31It's only there to keep a secret from the audience.
09:34Amy warns the Cocos to not get too far ahead, and Sonic's naturally impatient that they haven't found Tails since she's just diverting him.
09:43She randomly accuses him of wanting to leave someone in need behind when she'd never actually think that, since he happily helped her all this time before.
09:52She doesn't act like she cares about Tails, who she knew far longer and should care more about than strangers.
09:59Why wouldn't it occur to her that he's been going through the same experience she had been when she was trapped?
10:05Somehow Sonic doesn't get mad at her for this, and randomly says he's worried about her, as if it's Flynn writing Sonic and Amy pandering.
10:14Then I see explosions around the ancients.
10:18Why are a few of them slowly heading towards each other and hugging when they know they're about to be blown up?
10:24That's not a natural reaction.
10:26They wouldn't be in a good mood.
10:29This rips off the Tikal flashbacks in SA1 a little, and it's pointless to the plot.
10:34You could remove the Cocos from the plot, and while it'd have less to it, you wouldn't notice anything, because the plot's just about Sonic beating the boss fights in levels to beat the game.
10:45Sonic doesn't want to remember this stuff, so why would it activate?
10:50Amy bores me by saying the obvious about the last cutscene, saying she'd want to share love with the world.
10:57Because that's an appropriate reaction to seeing people dying in an explosion.
11:02And Sonic says he knows she'll do great, without saying that's because he thinks she'll get a boyfriend other than him.
11:08She never implied she was talking about anything but romantic love, so this is not like him.
11:13Why is an area no longer locked off to Sonic?
11:16I guess because he got collectibles, and the areas are built with Mario 64 logic.
11:21Just assuming anybody capable of getting them deserves to get past security for no reason.
11:27It doesn't explain that in the past there was only one Ancient with Sonic's abilities, and he was the hero who was the only one with clearance to go through all those areas.
11:37Amy's somehow sensing a titan up ahead.
11:40At least she tried to help Sonic by looking for the emerald on screen.
11:44Talk is cheap.
11:46But apparently that's all Sonic's friends can do anymore because showing them fight robots is so expensive that it can only be for a few seconds.
11:54Why is there a boring cutscene of nothing but Sonic running?
11:58He doesn't even look as fast as he's supposed to.
12:01There should be a gale force wind rushing past him as he's leaving a blue blur behind.
12:07What was the point of a flashback where an Ancient says there must be another way and that's all?
12:12Sonic apologizes to Amy, and she expects me to believe she's feeling more like her old self when she doesn't explain why, and he says he'll let her do another card reading with him.
12:23Establishing that out of the blue for pandering.
12:26Considering Sonic's battle and Rioter's, there was no indication before this game that he willingly hung out with her for fun.
12:34Where's a game where we see what caused her to stop coming on too strong?
12:38And tell him that she's gonna do that.
12:41And of course he cares that Knuckles is trapped and wants to get him out right away.
12:45I'd rather they put the cage somewhere else so that the cutscene wouldn't exist because he'd never see his cage until after Knuckles was freed.
12:53Why does it take so long for Sonic's friends to be freed from the cages?
12:57Generations didn't take this long to free its friends.
13:00I like that it's not Tails who's saved first.
13:03At least that's interesting.
13:05Knuckles realistically complains because he doesn't feel normal.
13:09Uncharacteristically, Sonic feels like trying to hold him back from punching him when he'd know it's not his fault he's not back to normal.
13:16And why would he need to when he's intangible to him?
13:19And Sonic tells him to help him find Emeralds.
13:22Why is he glaring at Knuckles now?
13:24Their antagonistic body language together has never felt so forced.
13:29Why does Sage talk as if Sonic somehow doesn't already know she can activate Titans and make them mad at him?
13:36How am I supposed to think she's smart?
13:38I'll never talk about her again unless she stops being repetitive.
13:42Emotionless characters are boring.
13:45I'd rather she be boring than annoying like Egg Get, but Egg Get has a better design.
13:50Why does she have white hair?
13:52You could say Eggman designed her and so she has white hair like an egg, but the problem is Eggman didn't design her.
13:59She just came out of cyberspace looking like a little girl for no reason.
14:04Why does Knuckles think he can stop her laser and succeed at it when he's intangible?
14:09Sonic goes in front of him and tells him to stop being aggressive.
14:13As if there's any chance of him going all the way up to her to attack her when he's intangible.
14:18He later states that Sonic's too trusting.
14:21I have to just assume he's trusting because she looks like a little girl,
14:25when he should know an AI could be made to look any way,
14:28and it doesn't mean she's a little girl who deserves to be treated like one.
14:32He's that shallow.
14:34Knuckles should explain this to him.
14:37Knuckles gives exposition that Sonic needs to use a cannon or something to drain water to progress.
14:43We all know that's what Sonic games are all about.
14:46That's why people loved Amy's levels.
14:49I like that Sonic's sarcastic with Knuckles because he tells him he's useless underwater.
14:54An exaggeration because he's capable of all the same things underwater that he can do above water.
15:00The dialogue after this is boring.
15:03I like that a main Sonic character finally points out that it's hot in a desert.
15:08Such faint praise.
15:10How does Knuckles know that his Koko is supposed to do anything?
15:14I guess they are telepathic.
15:16It decreases Amy's uniqueness in the plot if Knuckles is having him do errands for the Koko, too.
15:22There's nothing to say about him getting the emeralds.
15:25He does a dorky dance for it.
15:28Knuckles says nice work and gets told he makes a good supervisor.
15:32And of course, the villain doesn't understand good,
15:35so it's the evil-cannot-comprehend-good cliche posing as interesting characterization.
15:41Eggman would say the same thing about generosity.
15:44If she looked more like Eggman, she wouldn't have as many fans as this.
15:48How does Sonic know he's seeing a battle when all I see are characters standing?
15:52And then Sonic sees the beings die and doesn't look concerned afterwards.
15:57Our hero.
15:59It's supposed to be Shadow who's the stoic one.
16:02Eggman gets shown saying to Sage that he looks forward to her battle reports
16:05because she's telling him about every time the robots hit Sonic.
16:09He says he'll give her control over his whole Eggnet,
16:12and she'll be changed from Morbot and Cubot.
16:15Him saying that implies he plans to scrap them in favor of her,
16:19and only didn't conveniently because Sage looked forward to having brothers.
16:25The Robotnik I know would scoff at the idea of talking about AI like they're people,
16:30and he definitely wouldn't humor one.
16:33Eggman uncharacteristically praises Sonic for no reason.
16:37He says he respects him.
16:39Since when?
16:41It's sad that AOSDH is more like the games because Flynn wrote this,
16:45and this is something he's done before.
16:48Sonic explains to Knuckles that when he uses something,
16:51the island beams a GPS signal to his brain,
16:54causing him to know the layout of the land.
16:57Why did he say this to Amy?
16:59This would have come up before.
17:01And how is this worth a whole cutscene?
17:04Sonic cares enough to ask Knuckles how his Cyber Cage experience was.
17:08I don't remember how Amy's was,
17:11so he doesn't care about Amy enough to ask her.
17:14Knuckles says he was drowning in nightmare visions,
17:16and it was somehow the most alone he ever felt,
17:19even though he spent his entire life alone until meeting Sonic
17:22and was trapped in a void in Generations.
17:25Sonic wonders if Knuckles' visions were about his ancestors getting wiped out,
17:29and Sonic talks as if those are memories,
17:32meaning Knuckles was there,
17:34which makes me wonder if Knuckles' backstory in Sonic the Comic
17:37was based on what Sega told them ahead of time,
17:39since the same comic had the echidnas be Mayans early.
17:43Still, Sonic's jumping to conclusions here.
17:46Then boredom, so the concept of ancient technology is lampshaded,
17:51and Knuckles jumps to the conclusion that a material is alien
17:54because it's the sturdiest one he encountered personally.
17:57It's not like he punched every material in the world.
18:00Why doesn't his rival lampshade this?
18:03Knuckles wants to round up the Cocos with Sonic's help.
18:07It's good that the story keeps showing that the heroes instinctively help.
18:11Why does Knuckles remember when he first laughed at Sonic?
18:15He says this place looks like the ruins from back home.
18:18Why?
18:20It's a flashback of Angel Island Zone.
18:23There are no ruined buildings there.
18:26So he wonders if echidnas used to live here.
18:29Then Sonic would have had flashbacks of them.
18:32He remembers laughing at Sonic again,
18:34and says he can't let bad guys assault the bunker,
18:37and this must mean he still feels guilty about it.
18:40And he thanks Sonic for agreeing to humor him.
18:43What a boring story so far.
18:46At least Sonic Shovel and the Mario and Sonic London stories
18:49had interesting aspects to get your attention.
18:52This is literally just a Breath of the Wild ripoff
18:55with almost nothing to say about it.
18:57A bunch of my time is wasted seeing the Cocos move,
19:00and eventually get into army positions before their spirits leave them.
19:04It's so arbitrary.
19:06Why do the heroes have to keep doing these things for them
19:08before they can go to the afterlife?
19:11That's a needlessly depressing world,
19:13meaning that 99% of people are trapped like this with no one to save them.
19:17Sonic has a good sense not to talk when Knuckles is quiet and melancholic,
19:22even though he wasn't like that with Amy.
19:25When Chara was upset, he knew exactly what to say to her.
19:29And now he's just awkward running around sad people.
19:32He knew exactly what to say to Merlina.
19:35At least he thought he did.
19:38Knuckles says the angst thing that he's the last Echidna
19:41that I expected from SA1.
19:43But there's nothing more to it than just that,
19:46and Sonic predictably reassures him.
19:49Then Knuckles envies his freedom when he wouldn't at this point
19:52because he's happily abandoned guarding the Master Emerald
19:54millions of times in the games,
19:57even as recent as Sonic Forces.
20:00So he's been free for a long time.
20:03This comes off as writing from someone who doesn't know the Sonic franchise
20:06and only knows the character from reading a character profile.
20:10Multiple people wrote this game.
20:13It's nice to see them show affection to each other.
20:16Knuckles shows compassion, saying that he'd like to think the ancients
20:19just moved on and lived somewhere else.
20:22Well, there's no proof that literally all of them stayed behind.
20:26You'd think it'd be common sense that some of them would've ran away.
20:30He says he was drawn here because there's stuff built to harness the Emeralds.
20:34Even though if that was true, he would've come here a long time ago.
20:38Why would the ancients losing the Emeralds inexplicably make them disappear?
20:43He just childishly says that instead of saying they got blown up.
20:48I know that Sonic getting Emeralds is important for the plot,
20:51but it's so uninteresting and uncreative that I never feel like mentioning it anymore
20:55because there's nothing to say about it.
20:57Knuckles' next chat with Sonic is a boring recap.
21:01Why would they have faith in Sonic to be able to beat the Titan
21:04when he's beaten the others so far to get here?
21:07It's not like they're all ganging up on him, so Infinite isn't the excuse.
21:12Sonic again solves the puzzle with old technology to get the way forward out.
21:18At least him being able to solve puzzles acknowledges that he's supposed to be smarter than he seems.
21:23I kinda like Knuckles' confident dialogue in the face of what lies ahead.
21:28Most of the dialogue is boring and emotionless,
21:31so anything with emotion and character influence is very slightly more appreciated in this game.
21:36It's cool to see Sonic grab and hang onto the Flying Titan,
21:40but it would've realistically let go of it much earlier than that from the momentum going against his hand.
21:46The Titan just reminds me of that Wind Waker sand boss.
21:50What is the point of a flashback where an agent says something killed people when we already know that?
21:57The Tikal flashbacks are better because they involve echidnas,
22:01so they've got designs we actually care about instead of Kokos.
22:05Knuckles is right. The Titans would be killed a lot faster if he fought them as Super Knuckles
22:10because he's more used to punching.
22:12No wonder the Titans take 8 billion years to kill based on the footage.
22:16Just seeing a boss fight that involves forced waiting and takes minutes to beat pisses me off.
22:22It could last a minute and feel just as epic.
22:25It never made sense that the experience in the Cyber Cage was different for everybody.
22:30Why would the ancients make it like that?
22:32Why do the Cyber Cages even exist?
22:35We're not told that they're meant to punish criminals.
22:39You'd think if they were, the people in the cages would be reflecting on the bad things they did.
22:44Sonic doubles over needlessly depressingly, but it's worth it because it makes Tails hug him.
22:50Not that it matters because he wouldn't be able to feel it.
22:53Sonic talks like he's too stupid to understand him even though it's very easy to figure out what he's saying.
23:00He reassures Sonic.
23:02At one line, Tails angst is because he's always being rescued.
23:06How is he the only one embarrassed?
23:08What about Knuckles?
23:10This is way more demeaning to him.
23:12Sonic asks Tails to find emeralds for him.
23:16How does a flash of light appear, warping him away?
23:19Why isn't Sonic surprised and worried by this?
23:22For all he knows, this killed him.
23:24Since when can they teleport?
23:26If being in cyberspace made them able to teleport, they would've just teleported out of the cages.
23:33I really hate seeing this cyber corruption.
23:36What's the point of showing it, let alone more than once, when we all know they won't kill him off?
23:42Even Child the Hedgehog wasn't needlessly depressing against his main character like this.
23:47So this is one of the biggest problems with the story.
23:50We already did this sort of thing in Sonic and the Secret Rings.
23:54Despite Sage being programmed to hate Sonic and see him as just an enemy,
23:59somehow Sadie might be destroyed because he's a creative pet mascot.
24:04Tails, like the other heroes, states the obvious.
24:07Sonic figures out that the Cocoa were made to have a real body for the Ancients to use.
24:12If they were real bodies, then why would their spirits be sent to the afterlife after they'd do anything for them?
24:20Why wouldn't their new bodies be shaped like their old ones instead of being pathetic cutesy things?
24:26Wouldn't they not be as capable?
24:29Do you think I can change?
24:32Tails says in cyberspace an evil twin of his called him out on doing nothing on his own.
24:38And Sonic says Tails has grown and reassures him.
24:41It's nice of him to humor him when he undid the growth he made in the Adventure games as soon as Heroes
24:46and never looked back to become exactly like his inner insecurity told him he is.
24:51He deals with yet another Titan.
24:54It runs into a wall like Eve did.
24:57Sage knew he'd win, so I have to assume she only sent it after him out of programming obligation.
25:03Tails rattles off more boring exposition while touching ancient technology,
25:07somehow thinking Sonic would care.
25:10And then there's a redundant flashback about the laser storm against the Ancients.
25:15Imagine if the Tikal flashbacks were mostly Chaos destroying the Echidnas over and over.
25:20You'd stop caring after a while and just be confused.
25:24The dialogue after that is boring and unneeded as usual.
25:27Again, the characters keep stating the obvious like it has a point.
25:31Why does Sonic want to be told about the ruins?
25:34He's not a history geek.
25:36I already know Sonic has a map in his mind.
25:39Tails reminds Sonic for no reason that they came here to find the Emeralds.
25:44And figures someone tried booting up the system since they're in standby mode now.
25:48Why doesn't he say Eggman instead of someone?
25:52He just wasted Sonic's time because he said something about it.
25:56While Sonic was online, Tails got a bunch of info about the hopes of the Ancients for no reason.
26:02Why would a person go into another universe,
26:04cause another person in another place to get uploaded the diaries of other people?
26:09Wouldn't a button press do that?
26:11Sonic's friends getting the flashbacks makes even less sense than Sonic himself.
26:16Why even have cutscene dialogue before they find a remote control panel?
26:20It was all boring chit-chat.
26:22Sonic wants to find out what Eggman was trying to do with it.
26:26Tails wants Sonic to be careful in his thing to call Buddy and Sonic says see you.
26:31But the very next time after the fade to black, he's still with Tails, so that's lame.
26:36And they're talking about a cocoon.
26:38Tails says that helping them is dishonest because their battle's already over.
26:43Huh?
26:44Isn't Tails supposed to be a good person?
26:47Why doesn't the so-called genius already know that they're giving them peace?
26:51I can tell who wrote this.
26:53He's only a genius by saying big words.
26:56And that's not smart either because it just makes it harder to understand.
27:01He says they need more pieces and Sonic of course volunteers to find them.
27:05Right after Tails says the Cocoa are worried something happened because the hero didn't show,
27:10he naturally complains that he couldn't handle losing Sonic and forces.
27:15Then Tails reassures the Cocos.
27:17And Sonic asks him if he'd like to talk and he's shut down in favor of finding the Emeralds.
27:23Tails asks Sonic for another favor and Sonic walks unusually slowly.
27:28But Tails is somehow smiling like he hasn't seen this.
27:32Which is cheesy when we're supposed to feel bad for Sonic.
27:35Sage asks Tails if he trusts Sonic when clearly he would trust his best friend.
27:40How is she this stupid?
27:42She has to know he trusts him and it's just hoping to be proven wrong.
27:46If he really trusted Sonic, he wouldn't be worried about his well-being in the first place.
27:51He'd just have the utmost faith that he would succeed.
27:54She relatively appreciates that his loyalty is based on empirical facts.
27:58She asks Sonic his end goal and Sonic describes goalposts.
28:02He has to know what she means.
28:05He's just trying to alleviate stress because of how annoying she's been.
28:09Sage is too cowardly to just outright tell him the voice is leading him to disaster.
28:14When he lampshades with being cryptic, I'm thinking,
28:16point out your problems, doesn't make them go away.
28:19Sonic tells the Coco a nice find.
28:22Sage tells Eggman he could escape with Sonic's help because he helped him before.
28:27It's out of character fragments he refused to get Sonic's help
28:30when he was fine with it every other time before this.
28:33This is literally just to pad out the story.
28:36The same logic behind him being tired of it now would apply to all the previous times.
28:41So what took so long?
28:43She has no reason to think time is running out.
28:46Sage is shown saving him and he praises her for benefiting him once again.
28:51Tails' insecurity in this game makes sense
28:54because his insecurity mocking him in cyberspace got him started on it.
28:58But him asking Sonic if he's a burden still came out of nowhere.
29:02He says he's being rescued too often
29:04and somehow he thinks all he does is follow him
29:07despite the fact that he gets dated from him in recent games.
29:10And he didn't follow him through the levels in the recent games.
29:14So he follows him less than he used to.
29:17Him saying he's wildly inconsistent is stilted.
29:20He should have said, then I have no excuse for this.
29:24Sonic's praising him for things he did way in the past isn't that much to be proud of.
29:30Sonic puts his hand on his shoulder symbolically and reassures him.
29:33Again with knowledge Tails should already know.
29:36Again Tails is an idiot but at least Sonic's insightful.
29:40Sonic says way to go to a cocoon.
29:44There's usually nothing to say about these cutscenes.
29:48Sonic reminds Tails he's proud of him and calls him little bro like he's supposed to
29:52and asks if he's feeling better.
29:54Tails says he can't grow into his full potential if he keeps following him
30:00even though he only ever got to be useful by being on his adventures.
30:04The story tries to have me feel something by having Sonic be sad that he grew up so fast
30:08and dragging it on.
30:10But it's been too boring by this point for me to take it that seriously.
30:13When I'm talking like this it's really no surprise that he calls him little bro.
30:17Of course someone who raised him would think of him as a little brother.
30:20They shake hands and Sage is jealous of their friendship
30:23and regrets the idea of going with Eggman's order.
30:26It's cheesy that her flashbacks to Eggman have a girl badly singing La the whole time.
30:32The point is to show her remembering all the times Eggman praised her
30:36but without it showing the dialogue where he did so, it doesn't succeed
30:40because it's not reminding her of what he talked to her about.
30:44I mean it's not like it's showing him showing her physical affection.
30:48Why does the cutscene linger so long and her standing still with no dialogue?
30:54Then Tails says something that could destroy a mountain has a battery go figure.
30:59Why do we care about this?
31:02We already knew the Ancients were employing defensive measures against their enemy.
31:06The more I keep explaining the same things, the less emotional punch, they panic.
31:10The Ancient repetition is Wisps are being used for power all over again.
31:15They add one thing to the plot to make it look like it's about more than just Sonic beats all the bosses and levels.
31:22Tails says he's been studying a door that's locked until Sonic's cyber energy comes near it.
31:28Sonic could have come near it on his own.
31:31I miss essay 1 because when Tails was a Captain Obvious there, Sonic reacted
31:36but now he doesn't even notice somehow.
31:39How does Tails have no faith in its ability to beat a Titan as Super Sonic?
31:44He knows Super Sonic's invincible and that he has to beat the Titans to get his friends back to normal.
31:49Tails has made the most stupid remarks out of any friend of Sonic's in this game.
31:54I'm pretty sure he's the only friend of his who said something stupid in this game.
31:58And even if Knuckles did once, Tails should not be outnumbering him.
32:03Tails was an idiot in Sonic the Comic and fans of today actually notice.
32:08Clearly they don't notice or care how dumb Tails talks as long as he's an engineer.
32:14Another redundant flashback.
32:17As usual, it's got one line.
32:20At least Tikal's flashbacks were long enough to get you invested.
32:24Tails warns Sonic to be careful, being as dumb as Amy since this is equally a waste of time
32:30that provokes the same response from him.
32:33But this is his best friend who admitted to him he was traumatized by losing him.
32:38You'd think he'd humor him this time instead of the opposite.
32:42Sometimes there's just nothing to say about these cutscenes that I won't say again about the story as a whole.
32:47By the standards of bad Sonic plots, it's impressive that doesn't have force threading like a plot hole or bad dialogue all over the place.
32:55But nothing to say also means there's nothing good about it that's new to the game either.
33:00It turns out the agents had their spaceships drained of energy because a power source drew the batteries to them in.
33:07So they lost the ability to navigate the spaceships.
33:10The next flashback has an agent say that their homeworld was lost, explaining that they are aliens.
33:16When before, them being in spaceships could have you assume at first glance that they were only in space to fight their enemy.
33:22So put these two flashbacks together and it conveys that the Chaos Emeralds were spaceship batteries for aliens all along.
33:29This is ripped straight out of Sonic the Comic, only replaced the word Dracon with alien.
33:35When the Dracons are much more interesting, having an actual gimmick to them and political structures.
33:41The agents have nothing.
33:43And I heard they didn't even look like Chaos Zero originally, and it was only made that way to pander to fans so they'll like them.
33:49Why should I care that the agents wanted a small group of them to guard the Chaos Emeralds?
33:54There's another flashback where it's revealed that the agents had a plan involving stealing their enemy away that was carried out, I assume.
34:02Because they don't get to see the rest.
34:04There's an overly dramatic cutscene where Sonic once again suffers and his friends clichedly talk him out of giving up when it's not in character for Sonic to give up.
34:13Unleashed would have you believe he was impossible to corrupt, despite Darkspy and Sonic disproving that.
34:19This drags on longer than I thought.
34:22And waste my time with Sage and Eggman having some boring bickering and the personalityless bad guy of the game generically threatening everybody.
34:29But still, it's a cutscene and it's done.
34:32What was even the point of having this cyber corruption bullshit?
34:35It would have worked if it was a character without plot armor, but it'd still be blatantly unnecessary.
34:42I wasn't told that THE END is why the cyber corruption is a thing.
34:47So I don't understand why it's even a thing, logically speaking.
34:51Why would accessing the memories of the agents backfire on him this way when the agents wouldn't have programmed it?
34:57If he can do this to the cyber energy, why can't he hack his way out of the prison?
35:03Sonic thanks his friends and Sage begs Eggman to get Sonic's help.
35:08Why can't she just be persuasive and say of course he's gonna defeat the end?
35:13And so he doesn't even need to ask him to.
35:16She's lucky that he even decided to ask instead of just saying that he had to help him.
35:21I like the line where Eggman inducts Sonic into the Eggman Empire so he can feel better about getting his help again.
35:27Something is fine with an IDW.
35:29Still, the plot goes right back into non-stop pointless exposition after this.
35:34With Sage explaining stuff we already figured out.
35:37Why does Sonic care about this?
35:40The fact that the so-called ancients are aliens and not natives should make it less amazing that their tech is so advanced.
35:46I like that Sonic lampshades that things would have been a lot easier if Sage had worked together with him from the start.
35:52Was it though?
35:54He was doing the only thing he could to save his friends.
35:57How could Sage have saved his friends?
36:00Sage should have said her name doesn't matter.
36:03Not that it holds no meaning.
36:05The word Sage has a definition and she'd know it.
36:08Why is Sonic telling her that Eggman named her that out of respect?
36:12He did, but why is he telling her this?
36:14Why would Sonic think Eggman cares about an AI of his and tell her that when he should be hoping she'd abandon him?
36:21Sonic wouldn't care enough to ask her what the Cocoa are when he already knows at this point.
36:26All Sonic would care about this whole game would be saving his friends and then beating the generic final boss monster.
36:33Who tried to be Chaos again but lacks the interest and character motivation in favor of having nothing.
36:39He could have been called Satan and made sense.
36:42Him bothering aliens and then going all the way to Earth only reminds me of the Zorda.
36:48The Zorda were actually interesting.
36:51They had a real motive for going after the Earthlings.
36:55Why is Sonic stopping to have Sage tell him Eggman made her when he already assumes that and this is wasting his time?
37:02It's good that the plot shows Sonic saying it's hard to bleed the Emeralds from space after all this time.
37:08Because the revelation is easier to accept than it would be if we never saw a Sonic character react to it with dialogue.
37:14It's not really hard to believe that they're from space though.
37:17I already saw that in STC.
37:20And even if you hadn't, they're magical completely unearthly gems.
37:26There's nothing to talk about with the next two cutscenes otherwise.
37:30This is just sad.
37:31I have to assume the reason Sonic keeps having boring chitchat with Sage is that he's hoping the more he talks to her the more likely she'll be to ditch Eggman.
37:39Or at least start doing good deeds without that.
37:42Either way I'm hoping for him.
37:44The best thing he could do would be to tell her get rid of the ocean plastic and stuff.
37:49Take out the ocean pollution and use the materials for Eggman.
37:54That way she'll have a reason to actually do it and she'll be helping people.
37:58That's the direction I'd like to have for a character.
38:01She can do good and still be with Eggman.
38:04It would sweet of him to hope he'd turn her despair into hope.
38:07But otherwise, like with most of the game's dialogue, I spend the whole time waiting for it to be over and irritated that it's not because it offers nothing.
38:16Eggman tells Sonic to not dare lose one of the Emeralds he gave him when he doesn't intend to lose Emeralds.
38:22It's not his fault they scatter after he goes super.
38:25It makes sense if, as I assume, he thinks Sonic's going to hide the Emerald instead of give it back to him.
38:31I wish I saw how Eggman got the purple Emerald.
38:34Sage somehow knows the final boss, whose name I didn't catch, is going to retreat into space to recover his true form.
38:41And so she's necessary to beat it for Sonic.
38:44And Eggman sadly lets her.
38:46Why wasn't it in its true form from the start?
38:49So Sonic goes on to fight the final boss.
38:53Uncharacteristically saying please and begging the long-dead ancients for their power,
38:58even though he's an invincible supersonic who beat all the titans like that and has no reason to overestimate this new boss.
39:04And he's not supposed to be that humble.
39:07Eggman calls Sage his daughter, which doesn't end up being in the Japanese version.
39:11Who in their right mind would name any character The End?
39:16This game has had the laziest editor in the world because that name got past localization.
39:22That is the worst name for a character in Sonic.
39:25It would still be lazy, but you could have done a better job if you had named him The End in Greek.
39:33I like that Amy hugs Sonic without him seeing bothered by it,
39:37which only makes sense because he's treated Amy like a friend he's totally fine with in this game.
39:42I like that Sonic says that it's fun.
39:45The writers shouldn't have even bothered having Tails say he won't recognize him in the next game,
39:50because it's obvious to everyone that Sega won't allow that.
39:53So Flint shouldn't have tried to get anyone's hopes up.
39:56And the 99% of people who know it'll just be the same in the next game are just gonna be annoyed with this line.
40:01It doesn't reflect well on the writers.
40:04Amy amazingly referencing sticks got people excited.
40:08And while it's kind of cool, she already showed up in a Mario and Sonic of the Olympics game,
40:13even if it is non-canon, so we should have already known that she was allowed to be referenced in the main canon.
40:18I already heard this line before I watched all the cutscenes,
40:21and it's been pointed out to me that it could have been a lot better.
40:24I'd rather actually see models of sticks and Tangled do stuff in the cutscenes.
40:30Or at least give you side quests in the hub world.
40:33Mere dialogue is the most shallow reference ever.
40:37It's not good enough.
40:39Even if she said Sally and Angel and people would still go from even more excited to realizing that's blatant pandering because it's not good enough.
40:46Making models with animation takes effort from a larger group of people than dialogue does.
40:51Sonic Boom was a recent thing, so of course sticks was referenced.
40:55It'd be impressive if someone from Sonic X or Underground was mentioned,
40:59because those shows have lots of fanbases since SatAM and Boom.
41:03So pandering to one of those fanbases would come off as sweet instead of cynical,
41:07implying that SEGA doesn't care about other continuities if they're old enough,
41:10because it only allows references to off-continuity characters that are marketing the new Sonic stuff.
41:16They have recent models for sticks instilled in pandering to the game,
41:20so it's no wonder that people point out that you never got to see her instead of just liking the mention.
41:25I think I remember hearing that the Japanese script didn't even mention Tangled sticks.
41:30Or at least Tangle.
41:32This boring plot rips off Breath of the Wild with its titans and the main character getting memories.
41:38And being uncreative could be forgivable if it had vast pacing and mostly involved engaging things happening,
41:44instead of being mostly boring dialogue with almost nothing to the plot.
41:48It has way too many cutscenes for a little plot thirds
41:51when it's mostly just about Sonic beating all the bosses and levels to beat the game.
41:56It's such a video game plot and with so many examples of wasting my time that I can't care about it.
42:01Unless it's being needlessly depressing with cyber corruption, which Secret Ring sort of did already.
42:07It's realistic the characters would reference their past,
42:10so I don't see why the references are being complained about.
42:13Let alone by the same people who talk like the comics having references alone makes them good.
42:18I'll take anything that makes casuals finally dislike a Flynn plot,
42:22but I wish it was a legitimate major problem with the story they were hung up on so they'd actually learn something good.
42:29I don't want the takeaway from a Flynn story to be that having a lot of references is bad every time.
42:35What's bad is using them at the expense of creativity.
42:39I'd rather see something new, unique, and interesting.
42:42But usually references are good.
42:44But what people should learn is that they're extremely faint praise,
42:48not something that makes the story.
42:50They don't matter because they don't change the fact that the story as a whole was nothing but boring talking.
42:55And since that gets old fast, stories like this need a lot less cutscenes to be good.
43:01But it was way too slow-paced to be good.
43:04Now I'll talk about the Final Horizon DLC that overwrites the canon of the original ending.
43:10Sonic runs ahead and the Eggmobile shows up, so he stops,
43:14and Sage tells Sonic his friends sacrificed their normal forms for him
43:18because they conveniently knew they had the magical power to do that.
43:22Apparently the knowledge was beamed into their heads.
43:25So he feels bad about it and Eggman cathartically mocks Sonic's lame line from Sonic Heroes.
43:31Sage offers to restore his friends and tell him how to use the cyber corruption for power to beat the final boss.
43:38Logically, if she wants his friends restored despite them being Eggman's enemies,
43:43which should prevent her programming-wise from restoring them,
43:49she wouldn't keep liking Eggman because he's not going to stop trying to kill the heroes.
43:55This is the same girl that didn't tell Sonic information he needed to know
44:00because I can't give information to the enemy.
44:04She's bound by her programming until this point.
44:08And now she can betray Eggman all she wants and he doesn't even care.
44:12Just assume that I think everything not essential to the plot is a boring waste of time here because it is.
44:18Like Sonic lying on the ground just to immediately get back up.
44:22He tells his friends he wants their help getting the Emeralds.
44:26It's so convenient that Amy had her fortune cards with her when there's no reason for her to always keep them with her.
44:32Why do they say fortune instead of tarot anyways?
44:36Was there a copyright issue?
44:38I like that she lampshades that the initial advice she got is stuff she already knew.
44:43Because for once, the stating of the obvious was lampshaded.
44:48For once, someone didn't want the exposition.
44:51Why would anyone care about Eggman taking way too long to describe an ancient observation tower?
44:57It's interesting at first, but it doesn't need that much dialogue.
45:02Amy certainly wouldn't care about this. She's not the archaeologist Amy from Sonic Boom.
45:07The only one of them that'd make sense to not interrupt exposition about ancient history with I don't care is Knuckles.
45:14And I'd still want to be told that he started to care about history about non-Echidnas because Tails gave him history books and so he read everything about Echidnas.
45:24Even Echidna history is more interesting because it was about Echidnas and Knuckles is an Echidna.
45:30This doesn't relate to any of the characters. There's really nothing to say.
45:35Sonic's told he has to climb up the Tower of Memories and he's told to find McGuffins to make tower keys.
45:41Why wouldn't the key pieces be all right next to each other?
45:45Someone would have to intentionally scatter them so that wouldn't be the case.
45:50Sage says that Sonic's friends aren't handling their own cyber corruption as well.
45:55But when they hand Sonic the Emeralds, we don't see them covered in darkness or lying on the ground.
46:00And she wasn't shown looking at them right before this.
46:03I'd say this is a missed opportunity but I wouldn't like that either.
46:07Eggman was useful by getting Sonic and Emerald as well.
46:11Instead of boring cutscenes, we should have seen him find it and pick it up.
46:16I'm sure that was all there was to it.
46:19But it would at least be seeing something happen.
46:22All of this is just dialogue.
46:25Why would the bad guy say the shell was once his prison?
46:28He already knows that and who is even saying this for?
46:31It's really not like Sonic to have a god monster villain that talks like this.
46:36Chaos was mute and while Dark Gaia was like this, he still didn't talk.
46:41This is just demise Ganondorf.
46:44At least when Sage flies up and blocks the stuff being sent at her, this is an exciting cutscene to watch.
46:52It's still taking too long but it looks like something's happening.
46:56It's flashy looking and the characters are emoting, taking it seriously.
47:01Makes the other cutscenes in the game look lifeless by comparison.
47:06I'd rather the only cutscenes in a Sonic game be like this.
47:10The light around Super Sonic hurts my eyes with its extended focus on just it.
47:16Sonic goes super and gets sent out of super form, only to quickly go back into and fly up.
47:22I guess The End found the Master Emerald and charged himself up with it to do so.
47:28How did he lose his super form against his will without running out of rings?
47:32He didn't have to collect 50 rings to go back to super form.
47:37Apparently this reveals that if he gets tired enough, he can momentarily lose super form only to get it back from sheer stubbornness.
47:45Why did he call The End Master King instead?
47:50That's what he should have been called.
47:52I don't know where the hell the king part came from or the master.
47:57But it's better than the most generic on-the-nose name ever.
48:02Just to look cool, he's drawn to go light blue, wasting a bit of time.
48:07I guess Eggman's being shown because he's busy aiming at canon.
48:11Because the light blue Super Sonic hits The End in a visual reference to the moon being shot in half that isn't as cool because I don't get to see The End get blown in half.
48:22Why did Sonic end up landing on the ground?
48:24Since he fell from the same height as when he did in Unleashed, why didn't he make a little crater and have a struggle to get out of the ground?
48:32I assume it's because this ground is harder.
48:35And he only survived without injury because he had rings, so when he landed, he just lost rings.
48:41I like that he's hugged.
48:43And it's sweet to see Eggman call Sage his daughter because she appreciates it.
48:47What's really interesting is that they hold hands.
48:50Someone was actually told to animate that.
48:53So that's not something the Japanese script was able to get rid of.
48:56It's cute, but I'll never think it's in character for Eggman.
49:00Because he's been nothing but cartoonish and evil.
49:04I can't remember a single time he did something good that wasn't self-serving in the games before.
49:09It's not like he offered to hold hands with any other creations of his.
49:13He's only doing this because this one looks human.
49:17Those who don't question this just because we never saw him be a bad father would make me annoyed if they at the same time thought it'd never be in character for Starline.
49:25Of course I look forward to more of this in the next game, but he has to keep doing evil things and driving the plot in engaging ways as well.
49:33People are already concerned about the badass decay he has in this game because he spent the whole game just sitting around trapped.
49:42And that was Final Horizon.
49:45It's got the same feel as the original story.
49:48Boring and slow with nearly nothing new.
49:51With too much exposition I don't care about.
49:53It only existed so we'd see Eggman holding Sage's hand.