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spoonicksmaximus · 1 year

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Big the Cat Isn’t Real in Frontiers

In regards to Sonic Frontiers, something has been eating away at me since I completed the game, and I couldn’t find anyone else talking about it, so here I go! I understand that there have been comics released surrounding Sonic Frontiers, but I have yet to look into them, my analysis here is from the game itself, the animated prologue, and technically the Twitter Takeover, though they don’t mention Big at all from there. Sonic Frontiers Spoilers.

I legitimately believe that the Big the Cat that appears in Frontiers is not real. When Sonic first meets Big, he’s already in cyber space. Upon this encounter, I thought his random appearance was a reference to Adventure 2, in which he’d randomly appear in strange areas. Still, Knuckles, Amy, Tails and Eggman are all trapped in cyber space throughout the game, so surely Big must also be trapped as well, correct?

Sonic: “Big!? What are you doing here? HOW did you get here? What even IS here?” Big: “I dunno. I was looking for fishing spots and wound up here.”

Seems like a simple enough explanation at first. In character, at least. On top of that, much like everyone else (excluding Eggman), he has his own “memory tokens,” which in this case translated to Purple Coins, solidifying he was definitely, probably, trapped in cyber space.

Yet, by the end of the game, I couldn’t help but notice that Big was not with the cast of characters leaving the island.

In fact, we never saw him get sucked into cyber space in the first place. There’s proof that everyone else was seen in the PROCESS of being trapped, except for Big. Eggman went into a forest, did a thing and it immediately backfired before the game had a chance to begin, Tails, Amy and Sonic were all on the Tornado when they got trapped, and Knuckles got his own animated prologue justifying his reason for being here.

Big, on the other hand, did not. All we get is a line of dialogue claiming he did.

It also became known to us that cyber space is a collection of data pulled from the users’ memories.

Sonic: “Yo, so did Cyber Space actually interact with my brain?” Sage: “It was designed to catalogue neural networks, among other things, so yes.” Sonic: “Alright, hear me out: do you think all those locations I visited were pulled from my memories?” Sage: “That is plausible. It imported the data of your memories and applied it to your surroundings so you could comprehend them.” Granted, Sage is technically speaking hypothetically herself, but knowing how Sonic lore works, we have to take this as canon information. Taking this at face value, we have to assume the cyber space we visit as Sonic is pulled from his brain.

Which is why it’s strange that at the end of the game, or DURING the game, Big is never technically mentioned outside of his fishing spaces. It would also explain why things like ring boxes

or springs

appear in the virtual lake at all. These are from Sonic’s memories!

You could also argue that being the reason why some of the things you catch look... well...

... strange, to say the least. (Sega’s turning the frogs gay, huh?)

If this is still all in Sonic’s perception, it’d also make sense as to why the blue-ringed octopus or the anglerfish look radically bigger than their real-world counterparts.

Could it just be that Sega didn’t do their aquatic homework? Like they didn’t do their basic research on hedgehogs or on geology/astronomy? I refuse to believe that completely preposterous outlook. Sonic saw a picture of an anglerfish and an octopus, and just like ME at AGE 5, assumed they must be the roughly the size of a bear. (Side note, I’m aware that some anglerfish can grow up to 3 feet, and Sonic’s 3 feet, but this is still an absurd size comparison).

That said, there are still things like the Hermit scrolls that occasionally show up, and Big literally sells you Eggman’s diary memos. One could argue, those things literally couldn’t be in Sonic’s memories. However, cyber space is a communal space. Apparently you can find out information from just about anyone in there.

Tails: “While you were online it opened up a flood of data. It was way too much to process, but I did get a glimpse of the Ancients’ personal data.”

Based on this evidence, we can turn to Big, and question his role in Frontiers. He’s a merchant, he’s kind of a punchline, and he provides a break from typical gameplay (also a way to skip obnoxious memory token grinding sessions).

There’s... no reason for him to NOT leave cyber space. His presence in each fishing spot doesn’t suggest he is benefitting from his stay, nor is it assumed that he enjoys his time there. So why doesn’t he leave with them? Big simply tells Sonic that he was looking for fishing spots and ended up in cyber space. However, cyber space recreates itself for Sonic so that he could comprehend it. The Big we spend time with is very likely to be Sonic’s idea of Big, his memory of Big, or cyber space’s excuse to grant Sonic data. It could even be The End/spooky sky voice’s way of forcing Sonic to progress, disguising itself as Big, however my only evidence for that claim is during Sonic’s corruption, Big is not seen anywhere trying to assist Sonic. Even Eggman was there, not helping, but present.

Other than that, that theory is a stretch, even by my standards.

In any case, it was odd to me that Big was totally ignored throughout the game. He’s by no means the most popular character, but if we are to assume it IS the real Big, why would they leave him in cyber space? Why wouldn’t Sonic attempt to free him as well, or at the very least talk about him with other characters?

It may seem like Big is just a wacky character, who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time as usual. But if that was all there is to it, why is this such a... Big... Mystery? Thank you for reading out my entire existential crisis. Please have a wonderful rest of your day. Play Frontiers, it’s fun.