This is the bigger problem I have with it.
My musician pageI thought it was pretty clear how Sonic was contributing. Being completely invulnerable, he made for a fantastic bullet.
The End in general feels like an entire sequel premise got crammed into the last two minutes of the game to avoid ending on a sequel hook. It's super undercooked and doesn't have time to really be established as a thing beyond vague and hyperbolic foreshadowing from people who didn't really know what it was beyond apocalyptic doom.
We spend the whole game piecing together the knowledge of a doomed civilization and learning of a horrible threat from space that destroyed their world and is coming for ours. And then. Like. Suddenly, it's just here, and this is happening right now, and we have to defeat it forever when we barely even know what it is.
There isn't really any good way to do the fight because the fact that we're fighting it right here, right now would have felt rushed no matter what. Frontiers would have been better off ending with the threat of The End coming for our world as a sequel hook, and then spending another game exploring what it actually is. Which would also give them space for it to be something more interesting than a giant deadly rock.
Edited by TobiasDrake on May 8th 2023 at 2:10:53 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I'd be happy to wait five years if that's what it takes for The End to be an interesting villain that gets defeated in a satisfying manner.
As is, it's a giant rock that Sonic Supers in the direction of until it explodes. It feels super abrupt and almost random despite being the big villain that the entire game's been building up to.
Edited by TobiasDrake on May 8th 2023 at 2:13:15 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
![]()
![]()
TBF, the game did at least establish that The End was already here. It followed the ancients to Sonic’s World, nearly destroyed them, was sealed away in a Heroic Sacrifice by the last survivors, and then Sonic spends the whole game unwittingly setting it free.
Its also been Stated that The End isn't done, as the form Sonic and Supreme defeated is just one form of many.
Watch SymphogearI liked THE END. It was heavily foreshadowed in the story by the no nonsense spooky ghost voice being Obviously Evil and not communicating with either the Koco or Sage, Sage questioned Sonic's interactions with it, and the game shows it follow the Ancients to Earth. I also have no problems with the Ikaruga gameplay style beyond Sonic's contribution not being clear. Shmups can be fun, the reference was great, and the fight was fun. Plus, it's not too dissimilar to fights against the Finalhazard, or the final boss in S3&K, or Generations, other chase fights. If the regular zone bosses are "the same but more", a secret final boss has to be either the same but more more, or something different.
Sure, it could've been better. Since the regular shots had basically not effective impact on gameplay, you could've just forewent those and had the only projectile be Sonic as the ENERGY MAX attack.
One thing I'm curious about: There's several points in THE END's monologue where Mike's voice completely or almost completely drops out, just leaving Cindy's. This primarily happens when THE END conveys that Sonic's only fighting a minor incarnation. I asked Mike if he was made aware of a narrative reason for his voice not being used in some places, but he just said the decision for which lines he recorded that were included or weren't was completely separate from him. Before he said that, I figured maybe it was the core consciousness of THE END abandoning that fight and the incarnation, but maybe it was just my imagination. I wonder if the Japanese version uses similar voice layering.
Edited by wanderlustwarrior on May 8th 2023 at 5:29:42 AM
Also on The End being "just a rock" there was an interview not long after the game's release where the developers mentioned that The End simply appeared that way because it takes on the form of whatever looks at it sees as death.
So it's the moon, because that's something humanity, AKA we the players, commonly see as death.
I don't know, when I think of the moon I tend to think to it as something that dies a lot, even in Sonic, where it was previously blown up.
Though I can think of one time the moon planned to take us with it.
Edited by WillKeaton on May 8th 2023 at 6:14:17 AM
Since Majora's Mask, duh
More seriously I think its less the moon specially and the idea of a Colony Drop in general. A death from above that humanity has no way* to prevent if it happens. (and the kind of thing that wiped out their predecessors.)
- there prolly is a way to prevent it with advance warning
Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 8th 2023 at 5:20:58 AM
I honestly can't say I even have an opinion about The End. It's so undercooked and developed that it does feel like the devs just shoved in a final boss despite the fact that they DID foreshadow it.
And then they try so hard at hyping it up as the biggest, baddest entity that Sonic had ever faced and how nothing he's faced could ever compare and then it just dies anticlimactically with no further acknowledgement by the characters.
Its almost comical tbh.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.That sounds suspiciously like an opinion. (And factually inaccurate. We see throughout the game that it took the Ancients fleeing their planet, and using multiple weapons that can individually overpower the Eclipse Cannon, just to weaken THE END enough to seal it. And once it's freshly unsealed, it takes Super Sonic, SUPREME, Sage, and the spirits of the Koco just to beat an incarnation of it.)
Edited by wanderlustwarrior on May 8th 2023 at 8:01:10 AM
Well, that's what they say.
But...being a final boss and all.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.I'm really happy that Sonic Frontiers is selling well! Even though that game did have some bugs here and there, it was definitely a huge step up from Sonic Forces.
I love animation, TV, movies, YOU NAME IT!

Yea, if it's only implied but never outright said then it's not a true example.
That's something that definitely needed to be shown.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.