Sonic Frontiers - 2-6 remake preview

Because I apparently have nothing better to do with my life I've already started working on another cyberspace stage remake for Frontiers. It's still a janky mess towards the end but over the past few days I've already gotten the whole thing playable aside from a couple of alternate pathways. While it's another Green Hill stage, things have been mixed up a bit more by changing the weather and lighting to give it a rainy atmosphere instead of it just being another generic daytime level.
While I'm still not planning on doing anywhere near all the levels, the thing I'm starting to move towards is basically releasing a pack of 4 Green Hill remakes as a standalone mod, with 2-1, this stage, and two more being included. The other stages I'll probably do are 1-6 and 3-5 to give an even ratio of 2D and 3D stages, and they'll also get new lighting/time of day changes like this one. In fact I've already set up morning and nighttime variants for this purpose, though no work on the level design's been done yet.

[@Terminal_Apotos]

A solid base, I will say that some of the enemy placement makes certain Platforming sections look very stop and go when homing attacking. Rain in Cyberspace looks beautiful.

[@SuperSaiyanSonicYT]

Love the rainy atmosphere, we need more of them in official Sonic levels

[@TheEmeraldSword04]

The rain looks surprisingly really cool in cyberspace.

[@kao7143]

2-6 was one of the better 3D cyberspace levels imo, a lot more freedom to it, but i quite like that you kept sky rail's tower climbing motif in this one!

[@brandonj_300]

It's definitely one of the better of the reused layouts, mostly just decided to remake it cause I wanted to do something that used similar design concepts to it

[@FunkySpaceAlien]

Love the atmosphere! it works well with the sorta high energy yet melancholic music, sorta like Sonic is running through a storm but still determined regardless. I agree with most comments about the level design being sorta lacking. It doesn't look exciting even on the 2nd playthrough where you take the most optimal route. I did like the bit at 4:28 where you use your speed to reach the blocks and use it to cut down on the climbing toward the spring. I feel leaning toward having that flow would make it much more fun. Though I want to avoid harping too much because this is a preview, lol. From your others previews, you tend to be pretty keen on what needs improving so I trust your judgement.

[@brandonj_300]

Probably laid the platforming sections on a bit too thick here so I'm planning on making some changes to generally increase the speed and flow of the stage later on. And yeah that's actually kinda why i picked the rainy theme for this stage specifically, feel like it helps add more cohesion between the music and the level itself which didn't really exist in the original stage.

[@freezyreef]

I'm going to be real, the old level design had most of the slower moving segements completely skippable, layered, whilst this just feels way too slow

[@brandonj_300]

Tbf a decent amount of the platforming sections are skippable in some way but I'm gonna make more adjustments to increase the speed of the level regardless, since it seems to be a frequent criticism of the design so far

[@andregemeo23]

OMG!!!! This cyberspace remake project are one of the best things ever.

[@chandlernewman7296]

Neat, though I will say that pretty much most of the level tends to drag on with no interesting set pieces in the vicinity. Maybe some of those brief runner/platforming sections could incorporate a tower climbing type progression and maybe some upwards corkscrews and 180 degree loops as well. Also if you don't mind... I wanna make a request if you have a discord :)

[@brandonj_300]

No guarantees that I'll necessarily implement requests (unless its related to some type of bug or design flaw) but its brandonj_ on Discord.

[@marlonortiz2419]

You have improved too much. I can't imagine the great level that Sonic Forces Re-Imagined will have in the future 😎

[@DRMK_best_on_yt]

Cool that you added rain for more variety

[@bluedealer]

Amazing job my man!

[@paulo547]

I love your version. Can't wait for this to come out

[@izu7116]

These are so amazing lmao i love ur vids🙏🙏🙏

[@LouizGu]

My favorite cyberspace stage with a brand new design?? Sonic team please take notes from this masterpiece

[@Dragonking2356]

This is dope of a stage

[@Beastmd]

loks. really awesome, especially your camera angles! if i could suggest, I think the beginning decision for the upper and lower path should be updated. there is basically no reason to go right, cause the left takes you on a shortcut of that whole area. I had an idea: 1. have the left rail have a spike at the very end of it, so if you want to use it you have to boost jump off of it, and you may be able to slightly skip the first part of the hill. it would incentivise more people to go right, also you can put a red ring down there as a reward, or maybe even the silver medal challenge! 2. at 0:20, make a half pipe type structure on the whole right side. if you boost up it, you can fly up then be able to be high enough to homing attack that spring! great job, you are getting better and better and better!

[@JCSA79V]

I like this idea of remaking the cyberspace levels that reused old stage layouts to be new levels that are inspired by the old ones.

[@gameman5804]

One of these days, I hope you give Gens another try (or the guy who remade Seaside Hill from Heroes)... I would wait for the Gens remaster though.

[@brandonj_300]

The guy that the did the Seaside Hill remake also did Windmill Isle Act 5 iirc so you might wanna give that a try at some point.

[@gameman5804]

@@brandonj_300 You’re right, but regardless weather you do or not, It’s best to wait until SXS Gens is out and dissected. Hopefully, the tools will be updated. If anything, I expect Gens Modding to be a little dry this year.

[@jamesboi2111]

I like it a lot, though one thing I'd say is maybe allow the player some time to run between obstacles. Like at 2:48 with that box on the road, I think removing stuff like that between platforming sections gives one a bit more time to gauge what's coming up and lets them feel a bit quicker on clearer roads. Environmentally really cool and I like the different paths and rails to follow!

[@jamesboi2111]

Another thing is maybe make a few more of those rising springs skippable, like at 4:07 maybe have the glider head straight to the top of that big plateau rather than at those two springs. Just on the fastest paths it could kill the pace a bit?

[@imszn5]

That’s a cool level, it needs some more items & enemies & more paths, and a bit of camera fixes

[@Tailsfly593]

Good level design, and im glad modders are using the camera again cuz i hatw manually moving ny camera in a sonic game!

[@brandonj_300]

Truth

[@bebopknux5857]

Genuinely solid, as expected. My only complaint is there is pretty much no momentum(ik frontiers cyberspace controls) in it. Obviously your climbing and rail grinding. But as a person who uses the spindash to enhance the flow of repeat playthroughs, for the most part there isn't really a place where me using said spindash could enhance said stage. Not saying a platforming stage should *fully* accommodate that, but more along the lines of keeping the flow in normal gameplay, which carries over to using spindash to mow down enemies or to reach a spring you wouldn't reach normally. Of course I'm pretty sure you never had it in mind since not only is it a marker of an extra move but can very easily break certain stages.

[@supersonicss9779]

This looks amazing, will you ever do remake of 4-9?

[@cobblestonetower6323]

Insane

[@Samazuwhite]

Loving already the openess of the level, just a question I have will you remake every level or just a couple of them?

[@brandonj_300]

Check the description

[@javwav]

Cooked with that rain, but I would turn down the wetness a bit and make dropFilter more transparent (not rain drops, dripFilter)

[@brandonj_300]

Yea, the filter effect is a bit weird looking so i'll probably wind up either reducing it more or removing it entirely

[@innocentzbat]

I love this already, it's making me wanna reinstall Frontiers!! Also sorry if this is a unrelated and redundant to ask, but are you still planning to release Forces Re-Imagined this year or is it on hold for the time being? I'm only asking out of curiosity.

[@brandonj_300]

It's on hold for now, though i hadn't really been planning on a final release this year anyways. I might have said something to that effect a couple of years ago though plans have probably changed a dozen times since then lol

[@p3ngw1n]

Song name for Green Hill cyberspace level?

[@joryujozuma1996]

Is it me or there are no stiff camera transitions in this video? They look so smooth just like Unleashed/Gens

[@brandonj_300]

I'm using another mod/code in this footage that re-implements smooth camera movement

[@SEGA01134]

the stage that you remake it is a mod right ?

[@lokic-ug2sc]

You definitely like your Ares Island stages, no?

[@husepher]

Yes, slow and jumpy platforming in my Sonic game, just how I like it.

[@pinhe4d321]

There have always been slow/jumpy parts in Sonic games. Classic games had a lot of platforming which made you slow down significantly or even stop and wait for smth to happen. Same with adventure games + most of the other playable characters, werehog in Unleashed etc.

[@brandonj_300]

Pretty difficult to hit a good balance with platforming in sonic level design tbh, on the flip side I've seen quite a few people criticize Re-imagined and Overclocked for not having enough platforming which is part of what inspired me to do something slower and more platform-based. Even then I'll admit this stage might have gone in the opposite extreme so I'm planning making more tweaks to improve the speed and flow of it.

[@anthonyyawtwumasimensah197]

I have seen a lot of people criticise this level for too much platforming. This is true BUT the solution isn't to get rid of the platforming but do what SA1 does and find interesting ways to skip the platforming using the spin dash and other moves. A better solution would be to add more slopes and inclines to spin dash off so as to skip the platforming so you EARN your flow state instead of taking all the platforming away and it essentially becomes a bunch of hallways. I know Brandon takes criticism well but he needs to remember most people aren't level designers and it's better to look at what Sonic team has done in the past to maintain flow state and not people online who are clueless on the process. That's no shade to anyone who has given criticism but I think we should leave it to the professionals.

[@brandonj_300]

That's kinda my plan, I'm mainly going to focus on adding more shortcuts and ways around the platforming as opposed to just removing it completely.

[@aahiljcat]

this fits frontiers gameplay. Not that copy of Sky rail that's designed only for SA2

[@turcew2003]

Hey this might be a weird question but was this hard to make?

[@brandonj_300]

The quality of the tools coming out along with me ripping all of Green Hill's assets for the previous stage helped speed up development quite a bit; for reference, this stage went from a couple of rough drawings last Friday to being a completely playable ingame level a few days later. If you weren't experienced with modding tools or designing levels this would probably take a lot longer though

[@Sydney_Angelyt]

Level design seems pretty empty but you've got the atmosphere down. It feels like you're travelling through the grand canyon or something!

[@brandonj_300]

Part of it is the lack of ring placement and environment design outside of basic background structures but I'm probably going to reduce the width of certain roads and make some more tweaks to reduce the empty feeling as well.

[@blur8163]

Why does Sonic sound 40

[@brandonj_300]

Frontiers moment

[@blur8163]

@@brandonj_300Lol I beat the game when it came out, I guess I just don’t remember his voice getting that deep