Game Inbox: Will Sonic Frontiers Be Any Good?
The Tuesday Letters site is surprised that EA has changed its mind about single-player games, as one reader hopes for a Skies Of Arcadia remaster.
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The one
So we’re getting closer to the launch of Sonic Frontiers, and I’m having a lot of trouble imagining that it’s going to break the Sonic the Hedgehog cycle. I saw the developers say it’s nothing like Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, even though they clearly designed it to be as similar as possible (for some reason!). So that backtracking just a few days before it’s out is a little worrying.
I’m generally against acquisitions, but I wish someone would buy both Sega and Konami (yes, I know Sega is owned by another company and Konami makes a lot of money from gyms or something). Both are sitting on a mountain of awesome retro games and characters, and they do absolutely nothing with it.
Who would be willing to bet against Nintendo making an amazing Sonic game on their first try, if they bought Sega?
I know it’s not going to happen, but I feel like it’s the only hope at this point. I really don’t think Sonic Frontiers is going to be any good and then we’re back to hoping that the next one is the one that turns it all around.
Grackle
Two unlikely options
Am I the only one who thought nothing of the Metal Gear Solid 3 remake storyline making sense? Either someone hacked their YouTube channel, which I’ve never heard of happening before, or they uploaded a tech demo someone else made and pretended it was a teaser for their game? None of these things sound likely at all.
However, I have to say that I would lean a little towards it not being a hack. I think this developer, who I’ve never heard of before, took it upon themselves to do the marketing, totally messed it up, and took it all down once they figured it out. So…probably we’re going to get some sort of announcement at The Game Awards?
I still wish they would revamp Castlevania, they are doing all this backwards. And why Metal Gear Solid 3? Why wouldn’t you start at the beginning?
Camber
GC: We didn’t understand it either.
One at a time
So one of the big mysteries in gaming at the moment is why Sony hasn’t announced anything new in ages and what they’re really waiting for. I obviously don’t know the answer to that, but as an example it is now obvious that they are working on a new Uncharted.
Why wouldn’t Sony announce it at the same time the movie came out? Or at least when it hit streaming? Again, I don’t know the answer, but I think the overarching question is, are they going to announce all of their unknown games at once or one at a time?
Given how many there must be at the moment, you’d think they’d be building up for a massive blowout, but that doesn’t seem to be the trend right now with publishers. I think there will be a maximum of two at a time, and maybe a few less at the next State of Play. More likely it will be their big reveal at The Game Awards and will be for a few more months.
Broadcast
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Fantastic news
Interesting to see EA trying to expand beyond just being the FIFA company (or EA Sports FC as it will be next year). I don’t really understand why they changed their mind on single player games. As far as I can tell it was Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but I never thought of it as that big. But anyway, I enjoyed it and it seems to have woken up someone at EA. That, or they were looking at how well someone else was doing – Sony maybe, with all their exclusives.
If all three of these Marvels games are primarily single-player, it will certainly be a game-changer for the company, and I hope other companies follow suit. A good single player game will always sell, as long as it is published at a reasonable time of year, without too much competition. A multiplayer game has so many obstacles and may never find an audience.
I think it says a lot that publishers traditionally always choose all or nothing over low risk and medium reward.
Anyway, curious to see what the third game is. I wonder if it could be the Fantastic Four and previous rumors of it being Amy Hennig’s new game may have crossed their wires at some point.
Newton
Mini open break
I quite often get tired in the open world and take a break from them. One thing I like is an otherwise linear game that has a little open world section woven into them. I really enjoyed exploring downtown Seattle in The Last Of Us Part 2 and Metro Exodus’ mini-open world sections.
The last is A Plague Tale: Requiem which has an island to explore and was probably my favorite part of the game with a nice environmental puzzle I wish there was more of in the game. Can’t think of any other top games with this kind of section.
Simondo
Great recommendation
Over the weekend I finished a game on Game Pass called Tinykin. For those unaware it looks like a Pikmin clone from screenshots, but it’s more of a 3D platformer/collectathon. You play as a small child who has been shrunk down to become a miniature, Honey I Shrunk the Kids style, who must then explore huge levels that are rooms in a house, collecting objects to solve puzzles. At first the platforming mechanics felt a little weird to me, but they soon clicked after about 10 minutes of play.
It’s a game I’d highly recommend to all fans of 3D platformers looking for a nice chilled game to play, as it doesn’t offer much of a challenge. It’s much more fun to go around the levels and find all the Tinykin creatures to complete the puzzles and collect the pollen pieces. The only frustration I had was having to wait for Tinkykin to move objects around the level, which was necessary to progress.
Sometimes they had to cover quite large distances and it would take them some time every now and then. It’s not the game of the year for me, as I’ve seen some say it is, but definitely worth playing and only around six to seven hours long. It was the first full game I had played on Steam Deck via Xbox cloud gaming as well and it worked really well.
Angry_Kurt (Twitter)
Now playing: Grid Legends (PS5) and Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters (PC)
Are you a god?
In response to Mincemeat’s Ghostbusters game. You got me, I’m sold. XCOM style with a Ghostbuster spin on it sounds like a no brainer to me. Ah, we can dream!
[Clasps hands together in prayer.]
Dear Gaming Gods, I have never asked for Inbox magic ever, ever. Please make this happen.
Smokin_Monkey
Older edition
Very sad to hear of the passing of Reiko Kodama at such a young age. Presumably cancer? I’m so surprised that Sega sat on the news for so long – was it an assumption that there were no western fans of her work? Bizarre.
It’s really good over time that we at least got a port of Skies Of Arcadia to the Switch, if not the new consoles. A quick search while writing this shows me that the GameCube version can be picked up for £30 – but both it and the Dreamcast original can go for a lot more than that!
Sega are really bad at preserving their legacy, almost Konami bad, but come on guys – let’s not leave one of Kodama’s most famous works in the dust like that!
I know I can only speak for myself, but I would have bought it yesterday.
DMR
GC: They didn’t say what she died of.
Inbox is also running
Understand it’s a busy time (and only going to get busier) but any chance of a Star Ocean or Victoria 3 review?
Michael
GC: Star Ocean should be very soon, maybe even today. However, we will have to see about Victoria 3.
It will be too late for Halloween now (unless it shows up before you receive this), but would you like to review Saturnalia? It looks very scary and also has an incredibly unique graphic style. I’m definitely tempted to pay the relatively low asking price!
Crunkle (PSN ID)
GC: It’s never too late, except when it is.
This week’s hot topic
The topic of this weekend’s inbox was inspired by reader Rackam, who asks what’s the oldest video game hardware you still use?
Most retro games are relatively easy to play on at least some modern devices, but what’s the oldest piece of original hardware you still have in working order? How long have you had it and does it still work as well now as it did originally?
Do you prefer to play older games on the original hardware, or do you prefer to play everything on the same machine? If you only use older generation consoles, why haven’t you upgraded yet and when are you thinking of doing so?
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