The Animation of Sonic Frontiers
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- Опубліковано 20 тра 2024
- "How does the animation in Sonic Frontiers compare to previous games in the series", he wondered, oblivious to the consequences.
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Watch more New Frame Plus here! ► • The Animation of Final...
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Written and produced by Daniel Floyd
Special thanks to:
-Carrie Floyd
-Soraya Een Hajji
-Kyle Mohr
-mokona271
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♪ Featuring selections from the Sonic Frontiers official soundtrack.
------ ▼CHAPTERS▼------
0:00 - I am doomed.
1:00 - Intro
1:26 - Locomotion & Traversal
5:06 - Combat
7:21 - Bosses
9:40 - Narrative & Cinematics
13:25 - Verdict?
#Sonic #SonicFrontiers #animation - Ігри
Well... At least you'll always have a job talking about sonic animation now
Located at the void
I mean there's worse fates, not many, but still.
How is your comment posted 7 days ago when the video was posted 1 day ago? 😳
@benmalsky9834 The bad fate isn't necessarily playing Sonic games. It's being forced to play sonic games even if you would rather not, spending weeks if not months recording and editing video, and uploading it all, even if you don't particularly care for the blue speed boy, but got roped into it because one time you thought it would be fun to analyze the entire franchise's animation. That's a lot of work to do
So either Dan is the biggest Sonic fan in the world and just absolutely loves recording these things, or the task will wear on him, and he'll eventually dread the release of a new sonic game.
@@Mr.Sparks.173i cant lie as someone who loves the blue blur that still sounds like hell.
Heavy is the head that wears the Sonic Crown.
I'm both sorry and grateful for you and your amazing work, Dan.
Heavy is the hed that wears the gehog
@@safabekr😂
heavy is a robot from knuckles chaotix
@@zettatoad some point in development, Heavy’s name used to be Heaby. It is one of the most trivial, useless facts about Sonic I’m aware of.
Another one is that Eggman was once planned to be an enemy in the first game with a bee-like costume as shown in a piece of concept art, and another is that the text on that cute little image of Sonic in Sonic CD literally translates to “You are cool.”
And while on the topic of useless facts, did you know that in Sonic 3, if you walk a couple of pixels to the right of Knuckles in Sky Sanctuary, turn left and press down he’ll start shooing you away from him. Though I guess it’s not really that unknown because of that video Cybershell made on it a few years back. Another useless Sonic 3 fact is that over 40 minutes into the save select music, one of the instruments, I believe the triangle, gets WAAAY louder than it’s meant too. There’s also that one audio clip that plays in the base Sonic 3 theme for Knuckles.
I could keep going, there’s so much I know that you’d think I’m making shit up at a certain point. For instance, look at the background for Flying Battery and compare it to it’s level select icon. The level select icon has a completely different background. Yet another I know is that 2 or more of the songs in Sonic Adventure 1 are remixed arrangements of songs found in Sonic 3D Blast, but you probably didn’t know that because who the fuck plays Sonic 3D Blast.
Heavy Is The Crown by Daughtry is goated.
Dan in The Animation of Sonic Games: "I don't want to set a precedent that I'll have to talk about every new Sonic game that comes out."
Dan now:
He's trapped. Please, let's have a moment of silence in respect of this man. He has abandoned his freedom in pursuit of a truly Sisyphean task.
LEAVE ME BE
SET ME FREE
GO AWAY AND LET ME ESCAPE WITH MY SANITY
Here Rests Dan: Known Sonic Talkabouter.
I Am The Mouse
I'm Trapped
My brain glitched and I read the last sentence as "freedom in fursuit". Maybe the Sonic games are getting to me or maybe I have to talk something over with my therapist
@@imveryangryitsnotbutterDid you mean for this to be sang to the tune of City Escape?
This man is now trapped within his own self imposed journey. Thank you Dan for your sacrifice. I enjoy these videos.
I always appreciate your Sonic videos. Especially when you constructively explain why something isn't working instead of just saying "it's stupid" or "Sonic Team bad". Sometimes it feels like we as people can't discuss a game's shortcomings without aggression and petty insults towards both developers and each other. You make discussing the highs and lows of Sonic thought-provoking, interesting, and chill. It's a breath of fresh air. Thank you.
It helps that he knows anything about what he's talking about. Most gamers don't know anything about game development. I think it might be the industry with the biggest gap in knowledge between the people that make it and the people that consume it. Even rocket science the average person knows vaguely what they're doing, while games and CGI people just have no idea.
Absolutely this.
This is why I LOVE Dan's vibe. While so many people in the Let's Play/Video Game commentary space can get really negative, even when Dan is at his HARSHEST, he's looking for the good. Even if it's just "Oh, okay, I see what you were trying to do here" or "Ah, well, there's some major obstacles they had to try and overcome here," he'll always try and say something nice, and keep it constructive. He's still fully capable of recognizing a stinker, and in some of his more "live" recordings, you can tell when he's hating an experience, but, maybe it's the insider perspective, but he always seems to approach game criticism with "Even RELEASING a game is a fantastic achievement" mindset.
@@ASpaceOstrich thats why consumers sucks cuz they blindly buy stuff without a good mindset and never think befor buying the gaming industry sucks in america .
The cutscene of eggman getting pulled into the internet place or whatever it's called was the perfect footage to accompany Dan talking about getting dragged into sonic.
Its called Cyberspace lol
*Blockchain
What I super appreciate about these videos is that they don't jump to "lazy" or "incompetent" as the reason for the shortcomings as so many ""critics"" often do. It's TIME, it's almost always TIME, and you can see that so clearly with Frontiers, not just in the animation department. While a lot more polished than games previous, the general feel of it reminds me of unfinished assignments that I've submitted in the past - where some of it is super clean and well done, but others had to be abandoned early just to get it out the door on time. If these devs were just given more time to polish their games, it would solve so many of Sonic's problems. Reportedly, the game's director had to beg SEGA to delay the game to a 2022 release. Lord knows what it would've looked like if it released in 2021.
I will say, I absolutely agree with you on principle that time is the biggest enemy that most game studios face, I think with Sonic Team, Frontiers has revealed the lack of budget/resources that Dan talks about in this video as their new biggest hurdle to overcome.
We don’t know exactly how big Sonic Team is, but I remember seeing an interview for Frontiers with head of Sonic Team Takashi Iizuka where he was asked what the biggest difference between developing a Sonic game in the past was compared to now, and he said “When Sonic 3 was developed in the past, there were only a dozen people on the team. Now it is about 50-60 people.”
And uh, that might sound impressive when compared to a Sega Genesis game, but that’s a noticeably small team for a modern open-world game like Frontiers.
Fingers crossed that with Frontiers now being the highest-selling 3D Sonic game of all time, Sega will give Sonic Team the proper funds and allow them to grow bigger as a studio for the next game. 🤞
It’s not necessarily time, but manpower.
There were 60 people in Sonic Team working on this, which is a STAGGERINGLY LOW amount of devs.
@@OoXLR8oOarnt most AAA studio's headcounts in the hundreds? Like somewhere between 150 to 300 people?
If that's the case, the fact 60 people got *almost* there is pretty impressive.
@@Mr.Sparks.173insomniac has apparently expanded to 520 employees working on Spiderman. And that's small, the newest Assassin's Creed game apparently will be 2500+ people.
Sonic Team is absolutely a tiny size. They apparently are instead just ~50 with a peak with contractors being around ~200. They are basically a 10th the size for the scope they are aiming for.
(That being said, it looks like they are expanding with rumours they are aiming at 400 staff?)
@@Mr.Sparks.173Yeah. It basically started out as a very small crew that made the beginning conspects of what the game was going for. Pretty much the entire game design, with many playtest done throughout four years of development until they finally mostly got "That was fun" from most players. After that more of the team hopped on the project which eventually landed into the 60+ range. That's not even all of Sonic Team as they also work on other projects throughout all of Sega. It's an interesting thought what a Sonic game allowed unlimited time and budget could achieve because from people being there from the start of the series to new blood, Sonic Team does have some good talents hidden within.
15:39 This here is so true. Sonic Frontiers had to have been delayed, and I remember hearing that Izuka almost got fired because they wanted extra time, and they only got a year anyways.
Corporations am I right? It’s almost like they aren’t even humans and just soulless machines in human bodies.
Thats probably the reason why it isnt a broken game,but a game with bugs
God, that opening was absolutely hilarious. You do not choose the Sonic fandom, the Sonic fandom chooses you.
One of us one of us
And then it pulls you into the abyss of making sonic content FOREVER!
Sonic does have a pretty big gravitational pull, once you talk about him once you can never stop, I can relate
"I am not a sonic fan" the most sonic fan thing said in this video.
Dan: Makes an episode about Sonic Frontiers animation.
Sonic Team: "He has no idea we're adding the spindash today, lol"
For what it's worth, it's easier to compartmentalise those underanimated "standing around" cut-scenes once you notice that only the cut-scenes on the critical path get the full treatment - the rest are all optional conversations and can be kind of thought of in the same way games will often clearly draw a line between "proper" cut-scenes and "NPC dialogue" cut-scenes. It's just a shame that they frame them the same as all the mandatory ones with a fade to black and everything, so it takes a while to notice and set your expectations lower for them.
Even so, I agree they're a bit TOO standy-still. Just a handful of stock animations to punctuate certain lines, or a bit more camera work to mask the mundanity could have gone a long way for those. If nothing else, skipping the fade to black would also have made them seem more like the brief asides they are.
Love and agree with the video otherwise. Frontiers' animation definitely could have gone further but a step in the right direction (much like the game itself!). And as a lifetime Sonic fan, my deepest condolences for getting sucked into the void when you weren't even meant to be here, but it's very nice to have you! See you after Superstars! =D
now that you point it out, the discrepancy makes a lot more sense! and to think if they'd just stuck with NPC dialogue in-engine for the less important scenes, we probably wouldn't think much of it. might have even been a better choice to hide their limited budget a bit, honestly
@@tinycatfriendnterestingly, in the Summer Games Fest demo for Frontiers, NPC cutscenes were just played seamlessly on the overworld like you described, instead of having the fade to black.
If I had to guess why they changed it, my instinct would be to assume that the fade to black acts as a buffer for the game to load in and/or cull out certain assets; I played the game on Switch, and you can sometimes see the lower-resolution environment textures get swapped out for higher-res ones at the start of these cutscenes, so _something’s_ definitely going on under the hood of the game here.
yeah this has always bothered me how most people don't realize that these are basically just the "text box" scenes in this game. hilariously ironic that if they were just text boxes that weren't fully voiced with custom camera work or head-tilt queues, they probably would've gotten less flak for it! on the bright side, though, they'll definitely be absorbing this feedback into the next game.
Isn't the line between "proper" and "NPC dialogue" cutscenes just the difference between pre-rendered (or, at least, custom camera work) and in-engine cutscenes?
Can't wait to play Superstars, Mario Wonder, and Spider-Man-2 in the same week
I actually rewatched the Animation in Sonic video a few days ago, and I was thinking "huh, I wonder how he'd feel about Frontiers since it actually adds some squash and stretch, but there's some other animation oddities. That'll probably never happen though, since it's been this long."
I was wrong, and I apologize that now you're stuck with the rest of us.
hey i was your 1000th sub
The combination of the optimism and realism in the end section is genuinely something this fandom needs to hear more of sometime… barely been hearing anyone give this kind of perspective and I agree wholeheartedly here. Then again, maybe that’s because you’re *outside* the fandom, haha.
Your unwavering positivity in the face of this series is so admirable. It's easy to forget that these games are made by individuals and their effort alone deserves appreciation.
Yet you still manage to address the issues critically and illustrate the solutions. Sincere applause to you too.
I can't get over that intro. It feels fitting for how dramatic and and self-important frontiers is, as well as a genuine expression of dismay and commitment. I laugh so hard every time.
As an animator and a Sonic fan myself, it means a lot that you're willing to endure your continual suffering through the Sonic series to put out these great educational videos for aspiring animators. Great stuff as always.
Why is it that whenever non-fans cover Sonic related media regardless of its quality, it’s considered “suffering” as if Sonic’s so annoyingly bad that nobody’s allowed to genuinely enjoy its content.
Meanwhile, whenever people talk about Mario it’s considered a pleasure and a privilege.
This double standard mentality sucks and I wish it would just die already…
@@dusk173 Because Mario games are generally good. Sonic games are generally kinda shit. I love the sonic aesthetic and I'm only not a fan because the games are so... well, they're Sonic games.
@@dusk173 The fact that your list of games you have to exclude that were received abysmally is 5 games long and 4 of them were major releases is proof enough of why Sonic has the reputation it does. Also, even the games that aren't bombs are still usually mixed. The only 3D Sonic games to receive *universal* praise (read: not just from Sonic fans) upon release were SA1, SA2, Colors, and Generations. Heroes was mixed, Shadow was negative, 06 is self-explanatory, Unleashed was mixed, Secret Rings was mixed, Black Knight was mixed, Forces was mixed, Lost World was mixed. From the time period of 2002-2010, and from 2012-2022 there were no universally positive 3D Sonic games. That's 18 years out of the franchise's 32 year history. 56%. If you don't believe me, just look up reviews from the time (yes, including the fans). In contrast, Mario's worst mainline game, Sunshine, received 9s and 10s on release, and is only now being considered worse than the other games.
Mario fans also don't react this poorly when the quality of their games is brought up.
@@ASpaceOstrichHard disagree. Not saying Sonic has always been good but it’s nowhere near as bad as you think it is. There are plenty of good Sonic games out there and people like to exaggerate the series’ low points which feels very biased. There are definitely bad Sonic games but they’re severely outweighed by the good.
@@digimonlover1632 Yeah, but you're a sonic fan. A game that you might consider good might be kinda awful by most peoples reckoning. People were acting like Frontiers was some incredible high quality game.
Really hope he's going to look at Hi-Fi Rush soon because come on it oozes animation charm.
Please 🙏
He did play it as a one-off on his let's play channel and he adored the animation.
YES please
I've never had an arcadey game where I'd like to rewatch cutscenes while replaying, but I'm on my 4th?5th run for S-ranks there and I STILL stop to watch. That game's animations are just incredible in every way.
guarantee it’ll be the very first entry on 2023’s review in “stylized 3D animation”
aww, I was hoping you'd mention that they took the time to animate Sonic's ears as part of his emoting. I love that little touch, you mentioned them feeling mascot suit-y in previous games and ear animation goes quite a way to minimize that :D
Well, I don't show off; don't criticize
I'm just livin' by my own feelings
And I won't give in, won't compromise
I just only have a STEADFAST, HEART OF GOLD
as a diehard sonic fan, that last bit really hit hard. i _really_ want sonic to get the budget and time he needs to be the best he can, and i really commend sonic team for trying so hard even in the face of adversity
but you know what’s great? the success of frontiers convinced sega to give sonic team more resources, budget, members. i’m VERY excited for the future of this franchise and hope it’s animation follows suit!
i think the main reason why alot of the cutscene animations are so stiff is also due to the model people told Kishimoto about this (the games director) and he did say that they may try to give sonic a new model for the next game I just hope that this new model can be more expressive
Yea. A lot of animation limitations comes from the bone structure underneath the model. A new one designed to more easily animate would be good.
@@amandaslough125you think it would be better to give him more realistic proportions or to go all out on the cartoony aspects, making him a rubberhose animation akin to Crash like in Crash 4? Sonic is in that weird in between where he benefits from cartoony squash and stretch cause of innate design & gameplay but in terms of stories, they’re much more ambitious and it stands for reason that sonic giving Sonic much more human movement would carry the emotion better.
I really appreciate how you wrapped up your thoughts in this one. Once you compared Sonic to its contemporaries it was easy to just look down on Sonic Team as a whole but the way you brought it back to game development and the natures of these teams felt both appropriate and classy at the same time
with how dedicated kishimoto and his team are, im really excited to see what they’re planning in the animation department. hopefully we can see some more of it with the future updates to the game, like with the spindash
Honestly my reaction to frontiers was "oh my god, they've finally started to get out of the tailspin that 06 sent them in", this was nearly a fully 3d sonic game (the last one was 06), they approached realistic aesthetics (which even when the trailer dropped many people went "oh no, 06 had a more realistic look"), I mean hell, the roadmap has multiple storylines being added in a future update, which again hasn't happened since 06
Bruh why you mention sonic 2006 so much
++++ that was my thought to, open world has infamously never worked for sonic (at least not on animation and game feel front- though i too have massive nostalgia for the adventure games). But this one feels like it could be a basis for revisting some of those passionate (but very flawed) games and making them live up to some of the fun in those earlier games :)
Also, i actually want to second that the voice acting has really stepped up its games- to the point that for some scenes are more expressive and emotionally impact if you close your eyes. I acutally wonder if this big step up in the voice acting is why so many people say that this is the game is the closest at breaking the mascot suit problem
as someone who loves sonic for its characters more than its gameplay, and is REALLY into animation, i absolutely adored your big huge long video about sonic game animation. for someone who isn’t really into sonic, the care you put into your analysis genuinely is impressive and i think you do a really awesome job. I watched the old long video just recently, so i was STOKED to see you had made this one to follow up, and i was absolutely ECSTATIC when you mentioned sonic prime. it’s been a huge source of joy to me during hard times this past month, and what really stood out to me and what i couldn’t stop raving to my friends about is how the series, unlike every other sonic project, is being given time, love, and care. there are little callbacks to the classic games, the animation is BEAUTIFUL, the characters are so fun, and you can just tell everyone working on the show wanted to see it thrive. there was a quick moment in a fight scene where sonic does his old sonic 1 foot tap for barely a second and it nearly brought me to tears of joy. it shows that this franchise can do a lot more without compromising anything important to the fans. again, awesome video! i honestly can’t say many youtubers have managed to make me enjoy over an hour of one topic, i intend to watch more of your other stuff soon!
I know it's not a definitively great experience to be pigeon-holed into a role, (especially when you do such fantastic work across the board, no matter the franchise) but yeah... Dan, yours is a voice the Sonic fanbase broadly appreciates even more *because* you're not inside it. It's genuine, with as little bias as you can muster, and frank when it comes to the realities of game development both inside Sonic's weird little space, and in the greater cosmos of development. I genuinely don't know any other content creators who would *both* say "Yeah, these other developers could do it wayyy better" _and_ "Sonic Team is not other developers, they just don't have the staff or the budget." It's incredibly helpful for a casual audience to see this.
Man, that whole last part about sonic games being mid-budget productions but the devs still putting their all into delivering an “as awesome as possible”-experience could be repeated almost word for world for game freak and the mainline pokémon games. It’s a shame that these beloved franchises with passionate devs don’t get the time and resources they deserve.
i think its actually downright ridiculous in the case of pokemon- unlike sonic team, their series is one of the most profitable brands in the world. They could bank the risk on letting the team work on it a lot longer with extremely little risk to their profit margins
@@HurtdeerUnfortunately, the team are glued to the train of "Release pokemon after a set of years; no exceptions!" And they aren't being given the ability to do what they truly hope to.
They can reach a point, but like the fans, they know their time limit will not allow everything they want.
If generation 10 is the first thing announced after gen 9's dlc is done, then I hope they get the backlash they deserve.
@@eclipse9727I have been told that game freak has turned down offers to expand because they want to feel their “indie roots”. So…it sounds like they’re honestly just shooting themselves in the foot.
@@eclipse9727Yeah, with Pokémon the issue is very much time over money. I’m sure the games _could_ get higher budgets, but ultimately throwing more money at the problem just isn’t going to fix things as long as Pokémon is stuck with a yearly release schedule.
I hope the backlash to Scarlet and Violet’s buggy launch motivates The Pokémon Company to change things up going forwards.
I know that might sound unlikely because the games still sold well, but PR matters, and SV were a PR disaster that I don’t see TPC wanting to repeat.
@@shadamyandsonamyloverI don’t know when this quote is from, but it’d be odd if it was any time from 2019 onwards, because Game Freak did expand quite a bit for the release of Sword and Shield, with Bulbapedia saying that they currently have a staff of 169 people (nice).
I think at this point they know that a smaller team size just isn’t really feasible, even if there is still room for them to grow bigger.
I feel like Sonic Unleashed is probably the best animation in all of sonic games the emotion and character expression is PEAK, not to mention the CGI the game has its beautiful
Every like on this video gives Dan the energy to carry the burden of covering the animation of every Sonic game going forward 🙏
Joking aside, great analysis as always Dan!
That is one thing I saw when you did the Giganto fight in your playthrough a while back, is that the camera when you get hit could have stood to whip around faster so you could see what the boss was doing; there were several times where he hit you once, and then hit you again while he was still offscreen. Like, someone who's really good at frontiers can make those fights look spectacular, but if the player isn't doing well, or sometimes even if they're just sticking to a comfortable combat loop, they're... less hype.
I think it's worth giving a bit more praise to the narrative cutscene animation in Frontiers. It's true that the minor cutscenes with the automated animation are really stiff, but there is *absolutely* a noticeable improvement in the "golden path" cutscene animations compared to previous games. There's more use of squash and stretch, a much greater attention to timing and appeal, and as you said, they make better use of the eyes and hands. Again, I know you mentioned it briefly, but I think the animation in these cutscenes is much more noticeably fun to watch than the ones in, say, Forces. Great video still!
The cutscene with sage talking to sonic in chaos island is a particular highlight for me
@@areakastudios6704Me too. That was probably one of my favorite animated scenes in the game. Like the body language is more nuanced then most of the modern games.
I know people compared it to Sonic Unleashed, but please give me an example of Sonic facial expressions CHANGING in those In-Game cutscenes. Because Frontiers has a variety of expressions.
@@essycogany2738 When Sonic and his friends were brought to 3d in the Adventure game, they were redesigned by Yuji Uekawa. Sadly the only modern Sonic games he was involved with are Unleashed and Lost World. The rest were done various artists.
Thank you for this contribution and see you with Sonic Superstar or the final Frontiers update.
Bit of a fan inside info. From now on the Sonic games looks to be even bigger and bolder since SegaSammy realised the potencial of Sonic as a multimedia franchise and the people behind it caught a new wave of fresh air and bigger funding.
That last point is fascinating: It's funny how Sonic Team can both make some of the most consistantly boneheaded decisions and yet be exactly the ones expected to do so. Nobody quite does earnest stupidity like them and that's kinda fun.
Though I would absolutely love to see a Sonic game with the rendering and animation style of something like Prime. They've been using the same character rigs for around 15 years, so it's high time they get a real refinement.
The co-op series with Dan Jones has me trained too well - as soon as Dan said "Sincere applause", my brain just auto-filled in the clapping sound from the Switch Virtual Console
You should talk about “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” whenever it releases. It uses motion blur and squash and stretch and looks well… wonderful!
Hopes now that Sega is willing to not only give Sonic Team time, but also money that we are going to be seeing something truly special with the next main entry of the Sonic series on top of the additional story campaign they're giving Frontiers, especially now Sonic Team truly believe that this is their time to push past their previous frontiers
A year or two ago, a new viewer over on PlayFrame who was commenting on one of the videos innocently asked the question, "Has Dan played any Sonic games?"
I was _positive_ at first that they were doing a bit.
Thanks for returning once more to the Sonic Mines to bring us back this gem, Dan!
As a child of the 80s that grew up with the NES but switched to Team Sega from Genesis through Dreamcast, your last bit about the "ambition" of Sonic Team really hit home. That was the major reason I became a Sega fan in the first place. Nintendo's games were highly polished and I love them dearly don't get me wrong, but as a kid Sega's games just excited me more because for how crazy, inconsistent, and outright bizarre many of their concepts were during those years, you could always feel the "ambition" of the developers. I was a Sega fan because, like you would have NEVER seen Nintendo create or publish an IP like Toe Jam and Earl, or Ecco the Dolphin or Burning Rangers or Seaman or Shenmue. Many of their games were janky, or just didn't have the money or time to make them as polished as Nintendo's works, but good golly their ambition sure was interesting and exciting! Will this new game be a trainwreck or a masterpiece? Who knows! But boy was I always excited to find out!
Something I think is overlooked: Sonic looks his best when he's kinetic. Something about his design makes it easy to get him to twirl, spin and twist naturally, carrying the weight of his motions to the next. Black Knight does this really well sometimes, for example, when swinging around his sword. Drifting in Unleashed is also satisfying for this reason. Iirc the opening animation of 06 has some kinetic movement too. (It's cool seeing him do a flip after jumping out of a slide, or after a homing attacking an enemy too.)
Kinda sucks we don't see this emphasized enough. Not even in Prime, especially not Frontiers where his animations have a lot of stop and start.
This game is freaking goated
I love how 2 seconds into this video you already know it's going to be amazing.
i may not be any kind of animator but i AM a nerd and quite a big sonic fan so i really do enjoy and appreciate this video (and the previous feature-length documentary) giving me an insight into little details and quirks of the ways these games are animated and expressed
sonic team and it’s games are like when a bird throws their babies out of the nest to test if they can fly
I personally think they are more like the pigeons, you never know when they´ll drop a bomb...
I'll never cease to be amazed at the level of quality of these videos, and the gentle intellectual humility with which Dan approaches his topics. Dan might not love the Hedgehog, but he sure makes the Hedgehog feel respected.
Your first video on Sonic's animations is probably my most watched video on youtube. I don't know why but I always get the urge to watch once every other week. Great job fr
Like you said, the cutscenes that are properly animated have really decent animation and are pretty expressive, I hope that the team can animate all cutscenes like this next game
I LOVE the intro to this video! The music, the voicing, and the script all came together so well!
One of the only channels I have notifications turned on for and legit get excited when a new video drops.
I really appreciate you continuing to cover Sonic game animation!
For real, I've learned so much from these two videos, and keep rewatching the first one you made! ^u^
I have personally been looking forward to this video forever!
But Sonic analysis or not, you are an amazing UA-camr and I learned so much about animation from just your channel alone!
I really like the Super Sonic cinematics in the Titan battles, those are amazing.
I'm glad you acknowledged this game is a leap forward while also being far behind the competition.
(Also your admiration for Sonic Team is contagious, and genuinely has changed my perspective on them)
Really enjoyed the video! Also when you mentioned budget, SEGA has confirmed that they will be getting more team members and higher budget after the success of Frontiers.
Oh my God, tell me you have a link for that, because I absolutely want to believe that, and I don't go very far from Discord.
That one video... I keep going back to it. I don't even like Sonic but watching that one video is so enjoyable I can not tell you how many times I've watched. You could imagine how excited I was when I saw this video in my feed.
Fantastic video as always. Doesn’t matter what you’re covering, you always knock it out of the park. Can’t wait for a video on Mario Wonder if you decide to do that. That game is oozing with animated personality and clarity. (Take a close look at the spiky guys at the bottom during the rail grinding part of the trailer - their squash and stretch is absurdly expressive!)
This is such a great video. Constructively critical while simultaneously empathetic and respectful towards those working behind the scenes on these games. Your suggestion that it may be in their best interest to scale down while also admiring their ambition to continually experiment is so nice to see.
You consistently make some of the best videos on this platform; every upload is a treat. Thanks for doing what you do!
I love all Dan's little side quips. Gushing a bit of love for a particular animation, complaining about some old grievance with the series, or adding a little tidbit about a gaming studio. Something about the quick 'I need to add this in, even though it doesn't really fit here' energy of those comments is just so delightful.
Listening to this feels like Dan just staggered into the room exhausted, possibly covered in blood from some harrowing ordeal.
The Sonic IP is essentially a lobbying front for Sammy which uses it for good press for their main thing of pachinko. Frontiers has a team of 60 people. Pretty damn good what what they were trying to do. After the success of Frontiers, movie and other media SegaSammy is looking to increase their production.
I feel like things are changing with that relationship. It's not just borrowing Sonic's reputation anymore. The actual products matter.
@@henke37 Yup. Things are hopefully looking up after these recent successes. And I hope more great things are to come.
Let me guess, you heard that from Moon Gaming?
Just looking at the opening cinematic cutscene from Sonic Unleashed showed how expressive this Sonic design can be. It used squash and stretch really well. I think the reason the games haven’t received the same kind of animation is more to do with either it not being a top priority for the developers or they just don’t have the time or resources for it. It is possible though for the modern version of Sonic to be extremely expressive.
On the deadline thing. Frontiers nearly launched in a near disastrous state in 2021 and the director had to beg for an extension to late 2022. On Twitter he stated that a lot of things in frontiers ended up being very down to the wire before release. With multiple unused animations,enemy behaviors and maps left over in the code that they just couldn’t get done in time. Worth noting however that frontiers sold VERY well with talks of sonic team gaining tons of new staff and a bigger budget to work with in the future
I just realized sonic has so much potential for indie game makers to make a movement/momentum based freeform 2D/3D platformer instead of temple runner. One day, hopefully one day :)
I got you covered:
- Freedom Planet
- Sparks The Electric Jester (specifically Sparks The Electric Jester 3)
- Project Rascal
- Kaze And The Wild Masks
- Polyroll
- Defunct
I vaguely remember an interview with Iizuka that mentioned that the team that worked on the game only had 50/60 people (I'm not sure if this included people that would work on stuff like animating the characters though), and the games deadline did have to be extended at some point. Hearing that insomniac has more people than that working on just the animation is insane lol, even if it's not really surprising.
But yeah, when I found that out a lot of the lack of polish made more sense, especially with how rushed the last third of the game feels sometimes. I feel like the side story cutscenes probably would've gotten more polish given more time too. I'm glad they're using the brow and ears for expression more now as well, it's one thing that used to be present in a lot of the old pre-rendered cutscenes (and sonic boom, like you've mentioned) but then they just stopped doing that and everyone looked so much flatter and less expressive. It's nice to see that they've started including that again. That and there's a bit more squash and stretch in the movement (especially the combat) that used to be there and also kind of faded away a bit.
Hopefully if they keep following a similar formula for a bit they'll have time to polish it up a bit!
What an amazing opening (still watching, but damn that was great)
These are such great videos every time. I really appreciate them and do not take them for granted
the funny thing about you mentioning the team size and budget and extensions is that frontiers changed that. the devs managed to get the game delayed a bit to add more polish, and after its success sega has said that they are going to be giving sonic games proper resources (budget, manpower, and time) going forward. and yeah, sonic frontiers had like 80 devs total, so it's a wonder that it came out as good as it did.
I’ve been waiting for this video for months, and the wait was worth it :)
this is the best channel on UA-cam in my opinion. Always good to see you upload
16:48 you have absolutely no idea what a rush of emotion this one sentence brought me. i swear every moment of frustration, anger, wonder and joy i've had for this stupid, lovable blue hedgehog just shot through my brain like a bullet, and it just put the dumbest smile on my face.
I just love that the tone of this video is so positive and honestly also sounds hopeful for the future of Sonic games.
Yes, there are still points that could be better, but I love the appreciation you have for these games even tho you're not a fan of Sonic. But you're a fan of animation and that joy is always so much fun to hear!
I really enjoyed the analysis of all these games! Very well done and thoughtful
Amazing video as always
I adore how you are able to separate your personal feelings about the franchise from your criticism and analysis.
I really hope the sequel to Frontiers (god i hope we get a legit sequel) that Sonic Team gets a budget that is more than a paper clip and a few pennies
Now you've got Amy, Tails, and Knuckles's animations to judge come September 28.
I was waiting so long for this video YES
Dan has some extraordinary video openings, and funny beats. The opening to this video might be his best yet 😅
Good to see another video from my favorite Sonic UA-camr.
I actually haven’t played Frontier yet (be honest I forgot about it) but I really appreciate the video and really surprised with how good everything looks overall (especially for a sonic game) so I look forward to playing it.
This dude makes a giant Sonic Animation video 2 years ago, makes a big game animation of 2022 video, and then after a 4 month break, goes right back to making an in-depth video on a series he’s not even a fan of.
Mad respect. Great video. I hear Sega will be increasing the budget of future Sonic games since the sales were good for Sonic Frontiers, so I’ll be excited if we get to see more animators on the team to make an even more ambitious Sonic game. (Also the animation in Sonic Superstars so far looks stellar holy wow)
6:25 i actually didnt know this till a friend showed me this, if you hold forward, back, left, or right whilst doing the basic combo, sonic will actually finish off the animation differently depending on direction.
Nice to see a new one of your vids.
Always happy to see another video from notable Sonic fan Dan Floyd!
This channel is a gift that keeps on giving.
Your videos, Sonic or otherwise, have helped me learn a lot about ways to improve my own animations! Thank you so much!
I always wanted this since the og video, your videos are always great!
I love your videos man, one of the best things in the internet rn
Another great video from my favourite Sonic UA-camr.
I've been waiting for this for so long
New Frame Plus gotta be my favorite Sonic UA-camr fr fr (u are now a sonic channel)
Great video! Love these analysis vids. I'm really praying that one day we'll see a game that does incorporate that gameplay animation of Sonic Lost World and cinematic style of Sonic Boom, like you said. I think Sonic Team could really put out a huge hit, but they HAVE to go hard on the budget and allow for a lot of development. If there's one thing Animators always love, its having time to actually do it.
Dan, you are the sole reason I appreciate the sonic series, and have built an edh deck around the characters. Thank you but also how could you
I feel like ya gotta cover Pizza Tower and its animation, its genuinely some of the best stuff ive seen in years
I’ve been waiting for this video, I was hooked on the animation of sonic games
Another banger, happy to see more of this series happening.
still very eagerly awaiting your next FF video ;] wonderful coverage on a recent game's animation as always!
something I didn't see you mention during the combat section!
His basic combo seems to have some squash and stretch on the legs and a little bit of the arms! It looks pretty good! like you said, add some squash and stretch and those designs sing!
While you're not a Sonic fan, i do find your insight into the game animation industry quite valuable. You know what is like to be a game animator and presented your arguments excellent. And i also love how you constructively explaining the shortcomings of the games and not using common buzzwords like "lazy" or "incompetent".
I’m so happy you made this
Loved this video, and I've been a long time viewer!
It's finally time I subscribe.
Hope to see more from you soon!
If there's one thing I am BEGGING for them to do with these character models, it's use the BROWS for emotion! I'm so sick of the characters blinking each time their eyelids need to move to a different slant to get the emotion across. Sonic Prime uses the characters brows and it is leaps and bounds better than the stupid eyelids creating the emotion.
Another great Sonic video from my favourite Sonic tuber.