How Speedrunners found the WEIRDEST Skip in Sonic Frontiers

Sonic Frontiers might be a new game but that doesn't stop hard sections of the run from emerging. Pinball was becoming the most infamous part of the game among Speedrunners and so the community started to find a way to fix the issue...
Shoutout to Cherrifire for her work on the thumbnail! :D
/ cherrifirelive
Shoutout to GordonRamsay for helping me with the Science and Research behind this video. He's also a really good runner of Frontiers! Check him out here:
/ gordinramsay
Make sure to follow my socials AND make sure to sub to the channel for more Speedrun content in the future!
/ dawnsr
/ dawnsr_
Sonic Frontiers speedruns are amazing! What would you like to see me cover next? I'm thinking of breaking down a World Record Speedrun of Any% as a video, does that sound cool? What about Koco% or something to do with Chao?
#sonicfrontiers #sonicthehedgehog #speedrun

[@PilaCiu]

Saves aren't allowed in speedrunning and deaths shouldn't happen.

[@SavacGaming]

I didn't realize you were in charge of the ruleset

[@emperorprimalaspid9738]

Both saves and deaths have been crucial things for speedrunning since the dawn of speedrunning. (Or at least since video games started including save files)

[@onorebakasama]

Not true. Speedrunning has categories.

[@DawnSRC]

Oh my bad bro, sorry nobody told me

[@mechashadow]

Why did they take out the lives system if that was the case?

[@KiiBon]

"Shoutout to Gordon Ramsay for finding a way to skip Pinball in Sonic Frontiers" is not a sentence I thought I'd hear

[@art_addict76]

There should be a speed run category called “pinball percent” where the goal is to get to and beat pinball as fast as possible

[@AltKaxREAL]

it's kinda of funny how much they messed up the pinball physics for this game... Or even the course for that matter, that minigame was such an odd addition to it

[@NTH_SR]

This skip saved us all, truly a moment in Frontiers speedrunning

[@chrizzel28]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually like the SA1 pinball more. And this is from a casual perspective, I just hate how the ball can bounce around for half an hour and enter the side gutter without any control and set you back a ton, and that a single button misclick can cost you everything without at least a quick "you sure you want to quit?"

[@DawnSRC]

Yeah, SA1 pinball was also just cool. The annoying part was how it likes to take you on a ride with no choice but I prefer that to this for sure

[@chrizzel28]

@@DawnSRC SA1 also gives you at least a tiny bit of control over the ball itself even if the control doesn't appear to make any sense at all, and worst case scenario you can go through the sewer to get easy rings instead. Sonic being the ball makes it feel a bit less disconnected from the game too, while in Frontiers the pinball just feels tacked on entirely.

[@mechashadow]

Why? SA1 Pinball had the best Pinball physics, control over the table and the ball. It's naturally the best from the number of options and tables you get. Even the Lost World Pinball is better than this so I have no idea of what happened with it this time.

[@duo1666]

The SA1 pinball was an actual fun minigame that didnt really have a "fail" state. If you lost without 100 rings, you just played the level itself. And they were fun minigames designed to actually be pinball.... instead of a couple bumpers.

[@duo1666]

@@mechashadow Time crunch probably. The last island especially seems fairly rushed, and the final boss is just.... lack luster compared to the first 3.

[@SavacGaming]

So glad that this skip is consistent

[@DawnSRC]

Yeah I was really worried the Skip was going to be super tough if/when we found it, very happy its easy.

[@a_fine_boi5677]

@@DawnSRC rng is a gamers worst enemy

[@jrkirby_]

@@a_fine_boi5677 Honestly... I don't even want to know how Minecraft speedrunners handle that kind of stuff.

[@a_fine_boi5677]

@@jrkirby_ me too

[@spritvio639]

Oh yeah, the pinball in Chaos island is one of the reasons why one full playthrough of Frontiers is enough for me atm.

[@epicgamingwithgeorge]

I don't like chaos island in general

[@powerpc64]

@@epicgamingwithgeorge me too

[@supermysticsonic2]

Its not even hard?

[@epicgamingwithgeorge]

@@supermysticsonic2 it's just not fun

[@jamesmonorow574]

@@supermysticsonic2hi I know this was a year ago but I’m currently suffering endlessly from this BS sure I’m bad at games but this is just not fun I see why people did not like this game

[@kirstenonic05]

Never thought I'd ever hear the sentence "Escape pinball" but here we are It's amazing what speedrunners can do if they try hard enough!

[@phorchybug3286]

This makes the Lost World pinball look more forgiving.

[@somekami3375]

I knew someone was going to talk about this eventually lol. And to think that this CANNOT BE SKIPPED WHATSOEVER is going to be the make or break for every speedrun.

[@somekami3375]

I have stand corrected 😗. Speed runners can figure out world hunger if it was a category XD

[@DawnSRC]

LMAO I love the turnaround here.

[@somekami3375]

@@DawnSRC I have to give respect where it’s due lmao. I didn’t think it was possible at all XD!

[@CarsFoodWeed]

The pinball game and the crappy ikaruga clone really brought down my enjoyment level for this game

[@Gabo2oo]

Pinball is legit making casual players pull off speedrun skipping tricks, thank you Sonic Frontiers for putting something so annoying it's uniting all your playerbase under a common goal 😤

[@korke_]

Having gameplay shifts like suddently pinball and touhou would be acceptable on the late 90's, when SA1 was born. But for a 2022 title, with triple A price tag, it is not. We can't tolerate this.

[@soniquefus]

When I was playing through the game for the first time, I remember thinking, "I can't wait for speedrunners to find a skip for this." Good job guys. I love it

[@ViltrumiteIsRite99]

Wow, forced 2D sections in Open World, tricky to navigate, capped by mandatory & RIGGED Pinball?? Chaos Island is officially the worst! Losing lives/multiplier due to unavoidable ‘gutter’-falls is completely unfair, making a ‘Board-Shake’ or even a double jump COMPLETELY NECESSARY for the next patch.

[@DawnSRC]

Yeah, there are some things that could make this so much better. I just can’t believe how they thought this was ok lol. Also to add completely agree about Chaos, it also has some of my least favorite Cyberspace stages too

[@ViltrumiteIsRite99]

@@DawnSRC 3-5 has some of the best music, but the worsttt stage from Unleashed, with worse controll!! x. x

[@MightyReeN]

Speedrunning this game became way more fun that normally plying it. Wtf

[@FandeJay]

This pinball part is absolute BULL!! A small sidegame should NOT take that long to complete!

[@robertwyatt3912]

Honestly I’m like 90% sure the pinball “physics” aren’t actually physics, but static animations that utilize root motion.

[@KitWill_StealUrLiver]

I cleared the game but my data got overwritten (Rip 😭) but now this will save me A TON of time trying to clear again!

[@realroforb7676]

I wish I did pinball skip on my casual playthrough.

[@DawnSRC]

me too.. there is always next time!

[@squimmie]

great video, loving the frontiers speedrun content

[@superkulty64]

Amazing video about Frontiers' speedrunning. Glad to see this game being popular for speedruns. XD

[@ScienceDrummer]

I seriously never had an issue with the pinball minigame, I was wondering if it was even possible to fall in on the side and tried getting it in the pit of doom. I'm actually being serious, the point requirement was high, but I played it patiently and got the score required. I played it once however, so maybe I'd run into it again if I played again.

[@DawnSRC]

Yeah as a casual experience, some people hate it, some people had no issue. I didn’t have an issue until I started Speedrunning Frontiers and lost 5 minutes to it multiple times lol

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

I also genuinely didn’t know it was possible for the ball to fall out of play 😂 it seemed rigged to prevent you losing when I played it

[@Lusius8879]

whoever decided it was a good idea to make this a MANDITORY STORY REQUIRED MINIGAME, combined with those rediculous point requirements AND the multiplier reset... plss fire them from all future game developments.

[@DawnSRC]

💯💯💯

[@oddone_]

Hilarious a series known for buggy releases was finally a tough nutt to crack

[@sonictheporcipine]

This honestly belongs in either the r/crappydesign or r/foundsatan subreddit. If they really wanted pinball in there it should be as a minigames for tokens and whatnot like the fishing. Not forced on you to complete the game. What's even worse if that if heavily luck based instead of skill and that just ain't right.

[@CyberFunk626]

I actually got through the Pinball section on my first playthrough.

[@dip.918]

Yeah, it was easy ngl 💀

[@sonicdml4175]

It's easy, but may take time, which is the actual problem for speedrunners, as being too slow will invalidate the run immediatly.

[@CyberFunk626]

@@dip.918 However tho the moment I heard it was difficult I couldn’t get through the Pinball stage without losing the pinball

[@alansmithee6273]

I rage-googled this after dying several times to the ball literally glitching through the flippers and killing me.

[@myleswelnetz6700]

I could’ve done the pinball part all day.

[@moonlitcafe15]

Great video dawn!!

[@IonaRose]

My plead for pinball skip made it into the vid lesgoooo, godlike vid dawn

[@Nagisa_Kobayashi]

I enjoyed watching speedrunners have to go and struggle to go through these, I wish there was more of these types of things to make speedrunners have to take time in and are not skippable

[@DawnSRC]

Well the thing that was frustrating about this in particular was that it wasn’t really about skill as much as it was about what essentially boils down to chance. A good mix of skipped and unskippable is what makes a Speedrun great though imo. Also No Major Glitches exists for this reason as well! Frontiers will most likely be getting one of those categories soon

[@ethanparr8955]

@@DawnSRC Exactly, there's very little skill, it's almost entirely up to luck/chance which I despise

[@Emerldd]

La Kabalie Pinbalie 😎 sick video man cant wait for more Frontiers content

[@DawnSRC]

Thanks gamer 😎 we bout to make some sick content in the next few months.

[@zestynathanielbcousin9015]

Zesty

[@wildberrycrush3901]

I got frustrated and set the pinball machine to easy. It saved me so much hassle. Didn't know you could skip.

[@silly_sheep09]

The pinball term for the “gutter” is “outlane”, just wanted to say

[@DawnSRC]

Ah interesting, never knew that before lol

[@barkbuck5521]

I loathed this mini game, which sucked because it's not as if there hasn't been good Sonic pinballs before. You couldn't even shake the table for aid!

[@SonicEndouRed]

combining 2 things i love in games, sonic and speedrunning, makes for the perfect content

[@Masahane]

I don't know how yall find these glitches, this is amazing

[@skikuro]

First time I played this I lost. I did nothing wrong but just played. Then I realized that speed runners are gonna hate the fuck out of it.

[@jayceallen6530]

I feel like the only one that wasnt that mad at pinball, in fact i was pretty good at this minigame

[@TheMonkeyMan7253]

"I don't know why you'd want to skip the best part of the game" - That HAS to be sarcasm!

[@SilverSpireZ]

This mini game was easily the worst part of Frontiers for me. It took me an hour on my first playthrough, and I’ve barely struggled with pinball in any other Sonic game. Honestly, the final boss was less of a hassle for me. Glad runners aren’t going to have to deal with it. The speedrunning community never ceases to amaze me.

[@noahpauley]

Awesome video Dawn!

[@meganpresland1682]

I have the bumpers upwards when the pinball is near them and then I wait until the red star rings appear thank you for mentioning how often they appear

[@CDJAM-webm]

how to quicky complete pinball: just dont have any plans and go "random shit go" lol

[@yrrr4871]

This reminds me of the Pachinko Machine level from Super Mario Sunshine

[@GrimmyHunter]

Incredible video pinball skip is a dream come true 🙏

[@famitronic9870]

Only good thing about the pinball section is the music. Apparently, the music for that stage was made by Hiroshi Kawaguchi, the same composer behind games like Outrun. Just something I found interesting.

[@DawnSRC]

oh wow its so interesting, the sheer amount of awesome artists they got for this game. thanks for sharing!

[@mikeycoolmoney9184]

Pin balls

[@doremi4531]

I had to take a break when I died for the 8th time in pinball.

[@KalokesMysteries]

It's an ancient pinball table. They're still working out the kinks 🤷 haha

[@christiangraulau8107]

I got the pinball the first time but barely. I was so glad I didn’t have to deal with it again

[@SADXGamer4]

I’ve heard some people preferred the ball puzzle from 06 to frontiers pinball

[@playbossthebest936]

So I'm the only one who found it to be really easy then

[@IonaRose]

During my casual playthrough it wasnt bad, but for speedrunnung having your run die to pure rng change 1 hour into the run is terrible and was turning a lot of people off of running the game. Especially since for speedrunning you were always on 1 ball, so any death was a reset.

[@Hyperdragon1701]

@@IonaRose I mean it's not like it's completely rng. You can absolutely control where your initial bounce is gonna go. The biggest mistake people do in that mode is trying to get the red ring in the pit from the top.

[@alfinprathama8219]

@@Hyperdragon1701 but you can't control where the ball gonna drop. Sometimes the ball will drop into the pit from both left side and right side and you can't do anything about that

[@Hyperdragon1701]

@@alfinprathama8219 Theoretically you can, since the game is deterministic as far as i can tell. There is no random variance in gravity for example. Its still a pinball game but really i feel like people made a big problem out of nothing but i am also not a speedrunner so what do i know.

[@Nonehasthisnamekek1]

The biggest dissapointment was this thing hiding in the volcano. The final battle in space coming in close after. Just terrible both of them.

[@autosaver]

It’s highly likely they will adjust the pinball section with the patches IMO.

[@onorebakasama]

I can see the value in skipping the pinball game for speedrunners... but for me, it wasn't that difficult at all. The biggest issue for me was that it wasn't all that interesting. Sonic Adventure 1 has far more dynamic and interesting pinball games--granted, they're also optional, and failure leads to an easier way to complete the stage requirement, which I'm sure SA1 speedrunners are appreciating a lot more now.

[@tvs26]

For me the hard part was the fact that sometimes the ball fell through the flippers and my luck made the ball go into to the hole of death on the sides a lot

[@CarsFoodWeed]

It would have been better without pinball. It's like they had some interns make some crappy games and for some reason they got included in the final game.

[@cali4788]

I don't know how, but when I got stuck on this I was stumped, and my brother was basically laughing at me and teasing. He already beat the game so I told him to do it for me. He ended up doing it 1st try without losing any lives. Later found out he did the same on his own run. I don't understand.

[@Mr.Board_]

About the pit of doom you can pull a sa1 by rapidly flipping the flippers and the ball will just clip upwards for no reason

[@ZMATRIX_06]

Amazing Video I sub

[@rylanpayne1341]

Sonic: Pinball... Why'd It Have To Be Pinball!?

[@Toddo_5]

as a no major glitches speedrunner I hate this game

[@canisleepplz]

the joys of spending too long playing pinball have made me a natural in not entering side gutter

[@kao7143]

i would love the pinball segment if it wasn't 5 million points like cmon who on the dev team thought that was a good idea😭

[@lpfan4491]

The pinball really just sucks. Nothing more maddening than the ball clipping through the flippers.

[@DarkAnomaly]

Lol I must admit I thought you meant the British raging Cook Gordon Ramsay 😅

[@tjwizzy]

So I found this skip late, please don't tell me Oi have to retry chaos island?

[@inkchariot6147]

Sonic made me hate pinball, especially Sonic Heroes. Fuck Sonic Heroes.

[@LoganGivenchy]

I find it crazy that pinball was done way better in adventure

[@fireassassin1688]

This pinball game made chaos island go from being indifferent to outright hatred it's a horrible island with a horrible roadblock

[@jacobplute1655]

I feel like I'm the only person who didn't hate the minigame lmao.

[@DawnSRC]

Yep :)

[@Gnidel]

You were lucky to not have your multiplier reset at 128x because your ball was yeeted on the side without your control.

[@Tonis_.]

I’m a pinball fan and I enjoyed this part, what I didn’t enjoy is that your FORCED to play pinball to progress yet the balls physics is something out of an old 90’s game. Like it’s so hard to make it fall down the central gutter. This should’ve been something you could collect keys from.

[@georgiepig5726]

Agreed i myself nearly gave up even when i enjoyed the pinball game a good bit but it is just too damn frustrating to have to do to get to the knight fight

[@The-real-Icyboii]

Is there any way to skip pinball after talking to tails

[@PlaceholderNameIg]

i never died in the pinball minigame

[@MarshKArt]

Wait there's one before the knight fight???? I legit thought this was for the end of the game. I remember thinking to myself "damn how do I get to knight" since I'd stopped playing for a few days and just jumped into the crater and it started the boss I think I accidentally skipped this lmao EDIT: I never saw the fog when I went there to fight Knight, he was sitting in the middle when I dropped and there was no kill plane. Very bizarre, kinda wanna see if I can replicate this

[@superizillian957]

Could be related to the pop in issue of this game but I don’t know if it affects collision

[@cherrycreamsoda4253]

God this pinball was horrible. 5,000,000 point requirements was already god awful. But - and I kid you not - it took me 5 attempts to get the ball to go up into the portal once I got the point requirement. It’s the worst pinball I’ve ever played.

[@StatixFH]

ah yes, a Fear of Dark enjoyer

[@brianpso]

Absolute genius. Is there something else that's worth skipping using this autosave exploit?

[@DawnSRC]

You know for now, we haven’t really found anything else. Although I’m sure it will be useful for something else eventually.

[@tysonbentford3525]

dont fling the pin ball unless u see tha red rings. catch and until then

[@crazydave-bz1ys]

unrelated but I recognise that outro song

[@DJSKirby64]

Am I seriously the only one who found this puzzle fun to do?

[@DawnSRC]

I think quite a few people found it fun, I even did in my first couple playthroughs but when I had to rely on it for speedrunning... it got rough lol

[@alifulloflove]

i want the history of il's

[@DawnSRC]

Shoutout to the dude

[@deltacosmic5358]

Anyone else just trying to do this for a normal playthrough

[@joltganda]

I am the single person in this universe who liked the pinball.

[@DawnSRC]

I actually did enjoy it the first few times I played it as well. By the time I was doing more and more serious attempts though, losing your run to something thats basically not your fault sucks. Definitely has soured my opinion on it.

[@joltganda]

@@DawnSRC I can at least respect someone who found it enjoyable. And I completely understand not liking a run killer like this.

[@evoplayz4567]

Pinball

[@devonthehedgehog1808]

I’m not even a speed runner I just don’t like the mini game

[@tylerherr4288]

pretty sure everyone was wanting pinball skip even casuals because SHIT LIKE THIS 2:20

[@witmilk6527]

And thus speedran found a wae

[@AdamSelvig]

I like heroes pinball more

[@DawnSRC]

Yeah I think it's definitely on the lower end of Pinball in Sonic if I made a tier list lol

[@alfinprathama8219]

@@DawnSRC Pinball in Sonic Heroes was chaotic but on the fun way.

[@AdamSelvig]

I will admit this pinball requirement was a bit too much

[@Gnidel]

It wasn't. The issue is being killed randomly, without your control, which resets your multiplier. If there were barriers on the side and the multiplier didn't reset, it would be fine. The score amount wasn't the issue here.

[@Theragtagna]

Everybody is celebrating. Sega, please read the room and don't patch this out.

[@elliotsturtplus340]

It’s the worst part of the game if it wasn’t for knight being a god like boss fight I would say the 3rd island is the worst

[@DawnSRC]

Knight really does save Chaos.

[@Asupernaruto1]

Well I love pinball and I enjoy it 🤷‍♂️

[@Epsilonsama]

Hope this isn't patched cause I gonna be doing this on regular play

[@DawnSRC]

It still works :)

[@jadenjohnson1741]

I highly doubt the skip wont work anymore

[@marcosacosta8573]

Bro how do I do this on Nintendo switch bro can you pls find a way how to do it in Nintendo switch

[@DawnSRC]

It works the same on switch! Just try to follow the steps I show in the video or look at a top run and you can do it!

[@SonicTheKaijuMobian1991]

4:42

[@sassymetalsonic5870]

Does this still work in update 2?

[@DawnSRC]

Yes it does!

[@sassymetalsonic5870]

@@DawnSRC I wasn't able to do it as the box was not there, I must've broken it at an earlier point and I guess boxes don't respawn.

[@DawnSRC]

they should respawn after a Starfall! @@sassymetalsonic5870

[@TheMonkeyMan7253]

I already went past the Tails cutscene, so I think I'm doomed. 😢

[@TheMonkeyMan7253]

Never mind. I actually managed to beat this shit. THANK GOD!

[@DawnSRC]

lets gooooooo!

[@kitw1709]

For the algorithm!