What a lot of people either fail to realise or refuse to believe is that the best Sonic games are the flawed ones. The games that try to innovate with bold ideas unbecoming of a Sonic game, or any game. We've had 'perfect' Sonic games before like Sonic Mania or Sonic Generations and those games are great but they can't hold a candle to the way-too-serious tone of Sonic Adventure 2, the quaint but pointless Adventure Fields of Sonic Adventure, the audacity to make half the game a slow beat-em-up in Sonic Unleashed. People love Sonic for its ambition, not its accomplishments. People love games for their imperfections the same way they love people despite their flaws. Sonic Team has, for decades now, dared to do things that are new, bold, and weird. Sonic Frontiers is a continuation of that vision, and to reduce it to petty statements of "open world đ€ sega hire this man đ€ serious plot in cartoon rat game đ€ the controls đ€ but he's slow" is a pitch-perfect demonstration of how Sonic is doomed to fail. Look at your favourite games and try earnestly telling yourself they're flawless.
Credit to smaench for planting this seed in my brain, actual review when I'm done playing it and can let my thoughts digest rather than spewing unfiltered drivel onto your webzone.
Credit to smaench for planting this seed in my brain, actual review when I'm done playing it and can let my thoughts digest rather than spewing unfiltered drivel onto your webzone.
It sucks. I mean i didnt play it but i let my opinions form from online internet reviewers so much that i dont try anything even 1 person hates
Fans werenât lying, this really is the best Sonic game weâve had in years.
If youâre looking for a balanced review of the game, you wonât be finding one here. If youâd like more positive perspectives on the latest Sonic hotness, Iâd highly recommend reading Pangburn and MagneticBurnâs written pieces on the game, as well as watching ThorHighHeels and Cybershellâs recent videos on it. This review will not discuss any story spoilers, but will vaguely touch upon the final few bosses.
Initially I had (unfairly) written the game off based on its truly awful press coverage, but itâs not like I had much faith in this franchiseâs future anyway after getting a game as vapid as Sonic Forces. Though let it be known that Iâm always willing to give something a chance, no matter how little I think Iâll like it. I hadnât planned on getting to this for a while, but after my brother bought it on Steam out of the same curiosity for the game that I had, I knew I should probably just go ahead and play it. Now that Iâm on the other end of the experience I think Iâm even more concerned for this franchise's future.
After his last 3D outing this series was bound to take a sharp turn somewhere, but I think this genuinely might be Sonicâs most baffling course correction yet. True to its name, Sonic Frontiers stands as the dividing line between the older boost era of games and whatever empty path the series may decide to take next. This should be cause for celebration as I think everyone was essentially done with standard boost games after Forces, but Iâm not convinced this openworld zone approach is the right way to go if this series wants to stay on the cutting edge.
Over his career, Sonic has always been nothing if not a trend chaser, and thatâs abundantly clear here. Shifting away from a straightforward progression though linear stages, Frontiers dumps you into a huge, empty map and sends you off on your way to do whatever it asks of you, knocking out dozens of menial checkmark tasks on your way to the next Thing. Generally youâll be bouncing between haphazardly placed waves of enemies, puzzles that feel like they were made by a computer, and traditional boost stages in some of the most shameless methods of content rehashing Iâve seen in a long time. In-between these game-percentage ticks are the vast open fields themselves, letting Sonic stretch his legs a bit and run freely and mindlessly like the little rascal he is. After getting all the chaos emeralds on any given island (a process normally executed by fighting a boss to get a gear, using that gear to open a boost stage, playing the boost stage to collect keys, and using the keys to unlock emeralds), youâll be thrust into a massive set piece pitting Super Sonic against a massive titan, and after beating the boss youâll be ejected to the next island where the process begins anew.
It may sound harsh to explain this loop so bluntly and unceremoniously, but itâs not like Iâm being totally uncharitable. This is the large bulk of what youâll be doing during an average playthrough. Even among those who love the game, most would agree that a lot of the content in the open world itself can feel tedious at best or downright poor at worst, and Iâd be inclined to agree.
Stopping dead in your tracks while zooming from place to place to complete another copy and pasted âpuzzleâ to fill out a map youâve already explored is a recipe for disaster in any Sonic game as far as Iâm concerned, and that's before you even consider the quality of the puzzles themselves. I think Iâd be more charitable towards these if they were taxing in any way whatsoever, but they genuinely amount to turning your brain off for a variable period of time and getting rewarded with the mild satisfaction that youâre working towards a greater task in some small way. Sometimes youâre holding a button down for 30 seconds, sometimes youâre following a path around an obstacle course, sometimes youâre drawing a circle on the ground, sometimes it may even give you a slightly more valuable trinket as a reward for your hard work, but none of it will meaningfully latch onto you regardless. The game may as well just give you the stat boost / item for finding them (see also: looking at the marker on your map and running from one side of the map to the other to get to it) because the puzzles ultimately add nothing to the experience but provide a shallow time waster between story moments.
Let me slow down for a second, I know that these puzzles arenât the primary draw of the game and itâd be foolish of me to pretend they are. This is a Sonic game after all, itâs always been more about the journey than the destination. Even the best 3D Sonic games are usually pretty fun to move around in regardless of any extraneous elements that may bog it down, so how is the movement in Frontiers? WellâŠ
Iâll be upfront and admit that boost Sonic has never exactly been my thing, but there was a real opportunity here to transform this style of control into something that not only felt fresh, but managed to hold up the rest of the experience on its shoulders, flawed as the surrounding game may be. Against all odds, the system presented here managed to be possibly the most underwhelming iteration on this formula yet, but itâs not entirely the fault of the physics engine.
There was clearly an effort made here to give Sonic more tools to work with and add extraneous world elements to make field traversal flashier. but ultimately most of your experience will just be spent boosting everywhere if youâd like to get to your destination with any semblace of expediency or natural flow. It feels like most movement options (barring a few niche maneuvers like boost jumping off of a rail or other admittedly interesting speedrunning tricks for the Cyberspace stages) just punish you for trying anything other than the prescribed fun it wants to give you. Gone are the days of empty homing attacking to convert air acceleration into ground speed or spin dash jumping off a slope and shooting into the stratosphere, and in their place lie disconnected setpieces of rails and platforming challenges to stumble into and sit back in awe of. Admittedly, it can be rewarding in its own way to string these setpieces together in a way that can very occasionally bring me back to the beautiful labyrinthian nightmares of Sonic CD, but this type of traversal just is not my thing at all - boosting off a bump in the ground and entering a stiff arc in the air will never scratch the same itch to me as some of the crazy shit you can do in Sonic Adventure.
The elephant in the room regarding the openworld design is Breath of the Wild, a game that not only breathed new life into its own series back in 2017, but inadvertently spawned a wave of imitators that wouldn't pop up for at least a few years after the fact (you canât make a game like Elden Ring in just a weekend). Sonic Frontiers is clearly drawing inspiration from this title, and while this isnât a terrible thing on the face of it, Iâm intensely bothered by the approach taken by Sonic Team. On the surface, both games are strikingly similar: A desolate, wide open map to explore, exceedingly simple puzzles sprinkled across the land, an emphasis on player growth in its collectables, and short cutscenes that add almost nothing but small moments of character growth to bolster the main plot. A common critique Iâve seen levied at Breath of the Wild over the years is that the land of Hyrule is boring to traverse, that nothing you do ever feels significant and that thereâs nothing truly special to be discovered. I obviously resent this notion, but the reason why its crept back up in my mind is how Sonic Frontiers just feels like that imaginary game people have occasionally punched down on for 5 years. While many will bring up these two games in the same conversation primarily as a point of praise for Sonic, I feel like the core of each game couldnât be any different.
Sure, it may be true that not every single task you perform is Breath of the Wild is exemplary, the secret to their success is one word: freedom. The freedom to go anywhere, do anything, see new sights, play at your own pace, and tie it in a nice bow at the end of it all. There are more granular elements to the game I adore, like how truly alive the world actually feels, but the thing that stands out the most to me in this concoction of fun is how decision making affects the game on such a massive scale. Itâs not just that the game gives you a stat boosting item for a large portion of puzzles, itâs that you have to make the choice between boosting health or stamina. The world can be vicious early on with enemy camps dangling good early-game rewards on a string just in your grasp, so upgrading health might be desirable. At the same time, having a higher stamina bar is all but essential to make some of the more treacherous climbs in the game, and may also inadvertently make some combat encounters easier on the defensive if you need a hasty escape plan. While both of these can be mitigated somewhat through clever uses of the cooking system, itâs this consideration for player choice and their long term consequences that really make Breath of the Wild special to me, and go some way towards recapturing what made the original The Legend of Zelda feel like such a magical bolt of lighting on the industry.
No such consideration exists in Sonic Frontiers. Every task feels like it's being done for the sake of itself, rather than acting as a vehicle for interesting engagements with the world. Stat boosting has no bearing on how you play the game and does nothing but make combat slightly less tedious, so those rewards you get for completing puzzles may as well not exist. Enemy encounters similarly feel slapdash, there was not a single fight in my 15 hours of playtime that instilled any excitement in me whatsoever and I was tired of fighting the same mobs and minibosses by the time I saw them more than once. I guess it must appeal to someone that there are hundreds of little things on the map that go in one ear and out the other, but it certainly doesnât to me. Frankly I donât feel like this new approach fits the playground philosophy of Sonic in the slightest, and unless they come into the next game with a fresh mind on how puzzles and combat are designed, I think this approach should just be scrapped altogether. If Breath of the Wild was Zeldaâs come to Jesus moment, Frontiers is Sonicâs JESUS IS KING moment.
As Iâve tried to lay out so far, I have massive fundamental problems with this game, but what truly breaks my heart is every small crevice of the game that just blows its potential for no good reason. It feels like with every nearly decent idea Sonic Frontiers has, it somehow undermines it and makes you realize the whole thing was built on an extraordinary shaky foundation to begin with. Why go to the effort of divorcing the homing attack from the double jump, only to layer it over another opposing action anyway with the combo button? Why even force a stamina bar on you when it takes two seconds to enable infinite stamina? Why offer me the choice of pumping my stats into ring capacity when you simultaneously benefit massively if you can reach the maximum rings, making an increase in rings tantamount to wasting my time long term? Why dangle a defense stat in my face when I can spawn infinite rings at any point negating every single challenge in the game? Why would you design these massive bosses in a game with combat at the forefront only for me to fight every single one in exactly the same way. Why would you add a mediocre fishing minigame to your laundry list of side activities and skip out on the presentation side of it (the only good reason to have a fishing minigame), completely? Why include Big the Cat in your roster of side characters if Jon St. Jonâs goofy ass voice isnât the one backing him up? Why include a parry if you can just hold it down indefinitely, defeating the entire point of adding a parry to your game? Whatâs the point of living if we are all just going to die?
Even beyond the gameplay itself, I never found the actual primary tasks youâre bouncing between to be very satisfying either. Between chaos emerald runs, youâll be collecting island specific collectables to satisfy the needs of a few of Sonicâs friends, and will be treated to short cutscenes of banter between Sonic and the character in question. Occasionally these conversations will directly tie into or work to resolve the current events unfolding in the game, but oftentimes are just quick conversations about old adventures or ad libs about the current psyche of the characters. The writing of these scenes (and by extension the story as a whole) have honestly eclipsed all other discussion surrounding this game, and part of me understands why. It's clear Ian Flynn cares for these characters and wanted to push this series forward in a big way, nearly every scene feels far more grounded than what youâd find in an older game with even this same cast, and with every character interaction you can practically feel the love flowing from the heart of Flynn as he tries to humanize everyone to the best of his ability. I see why people are into his approach of character writing, but man itâs just really not my thing.
To me, the highest highs of this series were always founded on sincerity through the shmaltz and camp. It's not that you had to take it seriously, it's that it was all coming from a genuine place of earnesty to make something fun first, and to write a compelling character drama second. Even when Sonic is absolutely fumbling over himself trying to weave together an interconnected mess of a story, he still somehow manages to bring it all home with an absolutely legendary finale. Iâll admit that much of this may be down to personal taste, but none of the melodrama here in Frontiers really managed to resonate with me, and I think part of that may be due to the presentation and escalation of scale here.
One of my favorite elements to the older Sonic games, (and youâll have to bear with me here) was the buildup and anticipation to Super Sonic. This was less the case in the 2D games as it served more as a completion reward more than anything, but with the transition to 3D came a far grander scope, and an attempt at narrative pacing. The key word there is attempt - I think most would admit the writing in Sonic games has never been Shakespearean - but the effort was certainly appreciated, and likely played a large part in how these games were remembered over time. Even the blindest of Sonic haters would have to admit that he rarely disappoints for the finale, and this shift where Super Sonic went from a cute in-game bonus to a crazy big payoff right before the curtain call was a brilliant move on SEGAâs part. I tend to be one who prefers intrinsic gameplay benefits over extrinsic ones, but the buildup to the inevitable Super Sonic encounter in every subsequent 3D Sonic game has excited me ever since I first finished Sonic Unleashed back in 2008. Not only was it a smart move to ensure players couldnât steamroll the challenge of the game (assuming they didnât also intensify the requirements to unlock Super Sonic), but also to make the gameâs final moments land way harder than they could have if say, you had repeated access to Super Sonic at multiple points throughout the game up until that point.
This is why the approach found in Sonic Frontiers feels extremely flaccid to me. It's hard to get excited over an encounter that may have been the equivalent to smashing my childhood toys together had it happened in an older Sonic game, but when it gets repeated 5 times without any build up or escalation on subsequent encounters, it quickly loses its luster. At first I thought this may have been done to amplify the impending finale where weâd really do some mad shit with Super Sonic, but that's not the case. Instead you have two choices based on the difficulty youâve selected: on Normal you can have a final boss that plays just like the final encounters on the previous 4 islands followed by a Super Sonic cutscene, or on Hard you can have that followed by an⊠Ikaruga inspired final boss? I know Iâm normally the biggest blind defender of shoving shmup sections in games where theyadmittedly rarely belong, but there was such a missed opportunity here to blow the roof off the finale of the game and at least end with a bang, but I suppose that would require some amount of buildup to be paid off by a hypothetical section like this.
I donât wanna rip this game away from anyone whoâs having a good time with it, after suffering for years with no reinvention I can totally buy that this game would be the one that ties everyone together and brings back a feeling of hope for this series that hasnât been felt on this scale since Sonic Generations. That said, Iâd be lying if I said I enjoyed this on any level. This genuinely might just be a case of me growing up and this type of thing not really being for me anymore, which would be a genuine shame if that's the case. This series that once felt like a cause for joy and celebration in my life now feels trite to me, like the ship is finally sinking and the Captain is trying everything in their power to keep the cruise afloat. Iâm sure theyâll still find some way to wrangle me back in to see how the blue bastard is doing in the future, but thereâs no doubt that the spark is starting to fade for me.
If youâre looking for a balanced review of the game, you wonât be finding one here. If youâd like more positive perspectives on the latest Sonic hotness, Iâd highly recommend reading Pangburn and MagneticBurnâs written pieces on the game, as well as watching ThorHighHeels and Cybershellâs recent videos on it. This review will not discuss any story spoilers, but will vaguely touch upon the final few bosses.
Initially I had (unfairly) written the game off based on its truly awful press coverage, but itâs not like I had much faith in this franchiseâs future anyway after getting a game as vapid as Sonic Forces. Though let it be known that Iâm always willing to give something a chance, no matter how little I think Iâll like it. I hadnât planned on getting to this for a while, but after my brother bought it on Steam out of the same curiosity for the game that I had, I knew I should probably just go ahead and play it. Now that Iâm on the other end of the experience I think Iâm even more concerned for this franchise's future.
After his last 3D outing this series was bound to take a sharp turn somewhere, but I think this genuinely might be Sonicâs most baffling course correction yet. True to its name, Sonic Frontiers stands as the dividing line between the older boost era of games and whatever empty path the series may decide to take next. This should be cause for celebration as I think everyone was essentially done with standard boost games after Forces, but Iâm not convinced this open
Over his career, Sonic has always been nothing if not a trend chaser, and thatâs abundantly clear here. Shifting away from a straightforward progression though linear stages, Frontiers dumps you into a huge, empty map and sends you off on your way to do whatever it asks of you, knocking out dozens of menial checkmark tasks on your way to the next Thing. Generally youâll be bouncing between haphazardly placed waves of enemies, puzzles that feel like they were made by a computer, and traditional boost stages in some of the most shameless methods of content rehashing Iâve seen in a long time. In-between these game-percentage ticks are the vast open fields themselves, letting Sonic stretch his legs a bit and run freely and mindlessly like the little rascal he is. After getting all the chaos emeralds on any given island (a process normally executed by fighting a boss to get a gear, using that gear to open a boost stage, playing the boost stage to collect keys, and using the keys to unlock emeralds), youâll be thrust into a massive set piece pitting Super Sonic against a massive titan, and after beating the boss youâll be ejected to the next island where the process begins anew.
It may sound harsh to explain this loop so bluntly and unceremoniously, but itâs not like Iâm being totally uncharitable. This is the large bulk of what youâll be doing during an average playthrough. Even among those who love the game, most would agree that a lot of the content in the open world itself can feel tedious at best or downright poor at worst, and Iâd be inclined to agree.
Stopping dead in your tracks while zooming from place to place to complete another copy and pasted âpuzzleâ to fill out a map youâve already explored is a recipe for disaster in any Sonic game as far as Iâm concerned, and that's before you even consider the quality of the puzzles themselves. I think Iâd be more charitable towards these if they were taxing in any way whatsoever, but they genuinely amount to turning your brain off for a variable period of time and getting rewarded with the mild satisfaction that youâre working towards a greater task in some small way. Sometimes youâre holding a button down for 30 seconds, sometimes youâre following a path around an obstacle course, sometimes youâre drawing a circle on the ground, sometimes it may even give you a slightly more valuable trinket as a reward for your hard work, but none of it will meaningfully latch onto you regardless. The game may as well just give you the stat boost / item for finding them (see also: looking at the marker on your map and running from one side of the map to the other to get to it) because the puzzles ultimately add nothing to the experience but provide a shallow time waster between story moments.
Let me slow down for a second, I know that these puzzles arenât the primary draw of the game and itâd be foolish of me to pretend they are. This is a Sonic game after all, itâs always been more about the journey than the destination. Even the best 3D Sonic games are usually pretty fun to move around in regardless of any extraneous elements that may bog it down, so how is the movement in Frontiers? WellâŠ
Iâll be upfront and admit that boost Sonic has never exactly been my thing, but there was a real opportunity here to transform this style of control into something that not only felt fresh, but managed to hold up the rest of the experience on its shoulders, flawed as the surrounding game may be. Against all odds, the system presented here managed to be possibly the most underwhelming iteration on this formula yet, but itâs not entirely the fault of the physics engine.
There was clearly an effort made here to give Sonic more tools to work with and add extraneous world elements to make field traversal flashier. but ultimately most of your experience will just be spent boosting everywhere if youâd like to get to your destination with any semblace of expediency or natural flow. It feels like most movement options (barring a few niche maneuvers like boost jumping off of a rail or other admittedly interesting speedrunning tricks for the Cyberspace stages) just punish you for trying anything other than the prescribed fun it wants to give you. Gone are the days of empty homing attacking to convert air acceleration into ground speed or spin dash jumping off a slope and shooting into the stratosphere, and in their place lie disconnected setpieces of rails and platforming challenges to stumble into and sit back in awe of. Admittedly, it can be rewarding in its own way to string these setpieces together in a way that can very occasionally bring me back to the beautiful labyrinthian nightmares of Sonic CD, but this type of traversal just is not my thing at all - boosting off a bump in the ground and entering a stiff arc in the air will never scratch the same itch to me as some of the crazy shit you can do in Sonic Adventure.
The elephant in the room regarding the openworld design is Breath of the Wild, a game that not only breathed new life into its own series back in 2017, but inadvertently spawned a wave of imitators that wouldn't pop up for at least a few years after the fact (you canât make a game like Elden Ring in just a weekend). Sonic Frontiers is clearly drawing inspiration from this title, and while this isnât a terrible thing on the face of it, Iâm intensely bothered by the approach taken by Sonic Team. On the surface, both games are strikingly similar: A desolate, wide open map to explore, exceedingly simple puzzles sprinkled across the land, an emphasis on player growth in its collectables, and short cutscenes that add almost nothing but small moments of character growth to bolster the main plot. A common critique Iâve seen levied at Breath of the Wild over the years is that the land of Hyrule is boring to traverse, that nothing you do ever feels significant and that thereâs nothing truly special to be discovered. I obviously resent this notion, but the reason why its crept back up in my mind is how Sonic Frontiers just feels like that imaginary game people have occasionally punched down on for 5 years. While many will bring up these two games in the same conversation primarily as a point of praise for Sonic, I feel like the core of each game couldnât be any different.
Sure, it may be true that not every single task you perform is Breath of the Wild is exemplary, the secret to their success is one word: freedom. The freedom to go anywhere, do anything, see new sights, play at your own pace, and tie it in a nice bow at the end of it all. There are more granular elements to the game I adore, like how truly alive the world actually feels, but the thing that stands out the most to me in this concoction of fun is how decision making affects the game on such a massive scale. Itâs not just that the game gives you a stat boosting item for a large portion of puzzles, itâs that you have to make the choice between boosting health or stamina. The world can be vicious early on with enemy camps dangling good early-game rewards on a string just in your grasp, so upgrading health might be desirable. At the same time, having a higher stamina bar is all but essential to make some of the more treacherous climbs in the game, and may also inadvertently make some combat encounters easier on the defensive if you need a hasty escape plan. While both of these can be mitigated somewhat through clever uses of the cooking system, itâs this consideration for player choice and their long term consequences that really make Breath of the Wild special to me, and go some way towards recapturing what made the original The Legend of Zelda feel like such a magical bolt of lighting on the industry.
No such consideration exists in Sonic Frontiers. Every task feels like it's being done for the sake of itself, rather than acting as a vehicle for interesting engagements with the world. Stat boosting has no bearing on how you play the game and does nothing but make combat slightly less tedious, so those rewards you get for completing puzzles may as well not exist. Enemy encounters similarly feel slapdash, there was not a single fight in my 15 hours of playtime that instilled any excitement in me whatsoever and I was tired of fighting the same mobs and minibosses by the time I saw them more than once. I guess it must appeal to someone that there are hundreds of little things on the map that go in one ear and out the other, but it certainly doesnât to me. Frankly I donât feel like this new approach fits the playground philosophy of Sonic in the slightest, and unless they come into the next game with a fresh mind on how puzzles and combat are designed, I think this approach should just be scrapped altogether. If Breath of the Wild was Zeldaâs come to Jesus moment, Frontiers is Sonicâs JESUS IS KING moment.
As Iâve tried to lay out so far, I have massive fundamental problems with this game, but what truly breaks my heart is every small crevice of the game that just blows its potential for no good reason. It feels like with every nearly decent idea Sonic Frontiers has, it somehow undermines it and makes you realize the whole thing was built on an extraordinary shaky foundation to begin with. Why go to the effort of divorcing the homing attack from the double jump, only to layer it over another opposing action anyway with the combo button? Why even force a stamina bar on you when it takes two seconds to enable infinite stamina? Why offer me the choice of pumping my stats into ring capacity when you simultaneously benefit massively if you can reach the maximum rings, making an increase in rings tantamount to wasting my time long term? Why dangle a defense stat in my face when I can spawn infinite rings at any point negating every single challenge in the game? Why would you design these massive bosses in a game with combat at the forefront only for me to fight every single one in exactly the same way. Why would you add a mediocre fishing minigame to your laundry list of side activities and skip out on the presentation side of it (the only good reason to have a fishing minigame), completely? Why include Big the Cat in your roster of side characters if Jon St. Jonâs goofy ass voice isnât the one backing him up? Why include a parry if you can just hold it down indefinitely, defeating the entire point of adding a parry to your game? Whatâs the point of living if we are all just going to die?
Even beyond the gameplay itself, I never found the actual primary tasks youâre bouncing between to be very satisfying either. Between chaos emerald runs, youâll be collecting island specific collectables to satisfy the needs of a few of Sonicâs friends, and will be treated to short cutscenes of banter between Sonic and the character in question. Occasionally these conversations will directly tie into or work to resolve the current events unfolding in the game, but oftentimes are just quick conversations about old adventures or ad libs about the current psyche of the characters. The writing of these scenes (and by extension the story as a whole) have honestly eclipsed all other discussion surrounding this game, and part of me understands why. It's clear Ian Flynn cares for these characters and wanted to push this series forward in a big way, nearly every scene feels far more grounded than what youâd find in an older game with even this same cast, and with every character interaction you can practically feel the love flowing from the heart of Flynn as he tries to humanize everyone to the best of his ability. I see why people are into his approach of character writing, but man itâs just really not my thing.
To me, the highest highs of this series were always founded on sincerity through the shmaltz and camp. It's not that you had to take it seriously, it's that it was all coming from a genuine place of earnesty to make something fun first, and to write a compelling character drama second. Even when Sonic is absolutely fumbling over himself trying to weave together an interconnected mess of a story, he still somehow manages to bring it all home with an absolutely legendary finale. Iâll admit that much of this may be down to personal taste, but none of the melodrama here in Frontiers really managed to resonate with me, and I think part of that may be due to the presentation and escalation of scale here.
One of my favorite elements to the older Sonic games, (and youâll have to bear with me here) was the buildup and anticipation to Super Sonic. This was less the case in the 2D games as it served more as a completion reward more than anything, but with the transition to 3D came a far grander scope, and an attempt at narrative pacing. The key word there is attempt - I think most would admit the writing in Sonic games has never been Shakespearean - but the effort was certainly appreciated, and likely played a large part in how these games were remembered over time. Even the blindest of Sonic haters would have to admit that he rarely disappoints for the finale, and this shift where Super Sonic went from a cute in-game bonus to a crazy big payoff right before the curtain call was a brilliant move on SEGAâs part. I tend to be one who prefers intrinsic gameplay benefits over extrinsic ones, but the buildup to the inevitable Super Sonic encounter in every subsequent 3D Sonic game has excited me ever since I first finished Sonic Unleashed back in 2008. Not only was it a smart move to ensure players couldnât steamroll the challenge of the game (assuming they didnât also intensify the requirements to unlock Super Sonic), but also to make the gameâs final moments land way harder than they could have if say, you had repeated access to Super Sonic at multiple points throughout the game up until that point.
This is why the approach found in Sonic Frontiers feels extremely flaccid to me. It's hard to get excited over an encounter that may have been the equivalent to smashing my childhood toys together had it happened in an older Sonic game, but when it gets repeated 5 times without any build up or escalation on subsequent encounters, it quickly loses its luster. At first I thought this may have been done to amplify the impending finale where weâd really do some mad shit with Super Sonic, but that's not the case. Instead you have two choices based on the difficulty youâve selected: on Normal you can have a final boss that plays just like the final encounters on the previous 4 islands followed by a Super Sonic cutscene, or on Hard you can have that followed by an⊠Ikaruga inspired final boss? I know Iâm normally the biggest blind defender of shoving shmup sections in games where they
I donât wanna rip this game away from anyone whoâs having a good time with it, after suffering for years with no reinvention I can totally buy that this game would be the one that ties everyone together and brings back a feeling of hope for this series that hasnât been felt on this scale since Sonic Generations. That said, Iâd be lying if I said I enjoyed this on any level. This genuinely might just be a case of me growing up and this type of thing not really being for me anymore, which would be a genuine shame if that's the case. This series that once felt like a cause for joy and celebration in my life now feels trite to me, like the ship is finally sinking and the Captain is trying everything in their power to keep the cruise afloat. Iâm sure theyâll still find some way to wrangle me back in to see how the blue bastard is doing in the future, but thereâs no doubt that the spark is starting to fade for me.
I haven't so much been following Sonic Frontiers as I have been suffering it. The algorithms (and popular opinion, it seems) are against me on this one, and have been force feeding me this game on Twitter and YouTube no matter how many times I click on their little drop downs and tell them I'm "not interested." It's a wonder Sonic hasn't shown up at my doorstep to personally shove a copy of this game down my throat. Alas, here we are. Sonic Frontiers is out and like the mark I am, I bought a copy for 35$ on Black Friday. My condolences if you paid full price for this one, but you didn't abide by two of the immutable laws of game collecting: never buy a new game in the months of October and November, and never pay full price for Sonic.
This is going to be a long review. I'm going to cut Sonic open like a frog and teach you how every part of him works. If you don't have the time or the stomach for that, then the short version is this: Sonic Frontiers reinvents the series by trading substance for scope, morphing Sonic into an extremely dry collect-a-thon that is every bit as mechanically confused as it is buggy, and which despite its many callbacks has completely divorced itself from the series' soul. It is the worst major release I've played in 2022 (Although I just started Gungrave G.O.R.E. so... we'll see about that!), and I think it is sad that Sonic fans have been so mistreated they see mediocrity as greatness.
For those still seated in the operating theater, my tools are sterilized and the patient is on the table. Lets get into them guts.
THE LONG VERSION
Act 1 - The Gameplay Loop is a Mobius Strip from Which There is No Escape
Sonic Frontiers all but abandons the more focused level-based structure of past games for a new "open zone" design, which you could deconstruct to mean "open world," though I would liken it closer to a collect-a-thon. There's no shotage of crap for Sonic to collect, from Chaos Emeralds to memory tokens, defense and power seeds, keys, fishing coins, Koco, gears and egg memos... When you're first dropped onto the Starfall Islands and introduced to these various collectables and their functions, it almost starts to get ridiculous. Those opening hours suffer from a sort of "forest through the trees" problem where the basic rhythm of progression is made unclear by the sheer amount of items you're being asked to manage. This problem sorts itself out in time and you begin to understand what you need to do to push the story forward and what is superfluous, but none of it ever comes together in a way that provides a satisfying sense of flow.
I think this is reflected most prominently in the amount of disparate level elements littering each island. I want to emphasize the word "litter" because they're often strewn about like discarded trash, rarely connecting with one another in a way that feels intentional. Much of your time exploring Starfall will be spent jumping into and out of these short platforming challenges to collect memory tokens, necessary for freeing your friends and progressing the story. They're composed of the same core elements: grey platforms, springs, rails, speed pads, boost rings, balloons... Each one is just another reconfiguration of the same fifteen-or-so pieces, almost like it was assembled in a consumer-friendly level editor. You can see the seams. This sort of cookie cutter design caused them to wear thin for me after the second island, and though I've not run the math to back up this figure, I'd say something like 70% of them just sort of play themselves.
Once you've collected a token, you're (usually) sent flying back onto land. That's it, you got one, time to move on to the next. There are no bespoke gimmicks per island, no quicksand on Ares or snowboarding on Chaos to make use of the unique qualities of the biomes you visit in the way that every other platforming game would. It's just the same combinations of prefab geometry every single time for 20-30 hours.
Breaking up the monotony are Cyberspace levels, which each island has a small number of. These short independent zones play similar to the "boost" style of levels found in previous 3D Sonic games and are probably the best part of Sonic Frontiers as a whole. This starts to make sense though when you realize the level layouts are ripped from other, better Sonic games. "Wait a minute... this is White Jungle! Hold on, this is just City Escape!" Oh Sonic Adventure 2, how I've misjudged you. Sonic Team could not be bothered to come up with more than a pinch of unique layouts for these levels, which are themselves 75% asset flips from Sonic Generation. Enough of this, please. I am so sick of seeing Green Hill. Chemical Plant as lost all of its power, I am no longer nostalgic for Sky Sanctuary. Great investment, that Generations. They've been picking its bones since 2011.
And yet, borne from a lack of effort and a dearth of originality, Cyberspace is Sonic Frontier's greatest strength. "Sonic had a rough transition to 3D," bitch I'm playing good 3D Sonic levels from the last 20+ years in the new 3D Sonic, which otherwise completely fails to be fun. These levels come from games that may have been uneven experiences, but which held tight something Frontiers has let go: the tenet that Sonic games excel when platforming works rhythmically with speed.
Launched back out of Cyberspace and into the dire landscapes of Sonic Frontier's open zones, there's a few more things you can do, like collecting Koco and red and blue seeds to upgrade Sonic's stats, a feature I'm convinced exists to pad out the experience and trick players into thinking they're making meaningful progress.
Rings and speed can only be upgraded by visiting the Elder Koco, the currency for which are young Koco you find throughout the island or in Big's finishing minigame. The formula for how much Koco equates to one skill point is unclear, and when you're turning them over you don't actually see how many are leaving your possession or how many points you're gaining in turn. You then bank these points into your desired stat, one... at a time. Very slowly. In this clip, I am mashing the buttons to get through this as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, you can visit the Hermit Koco to upgrade your defense and strength, except this Koco will just consume all the red and blue seeds you've collected and automatically upgrade the corresponding stats accordingly. So, what the hell? There's one guy over here who lets me upgrade my stats instantly, but he only lets me upgrade two of my four stats, and then I got this bozo over here who makes me slog through his menus for the other two? Why isn't there just one NPC who handles my stats? Why are there three upgrade currencies instead of four? Or better yet, why isn't there one currency that I can allocate however I wish? These characters are not voiced and when you talk to them it doesn't denote who is speaking so there was multiple times where I didn't know if the Koco was talking or Sonic. Who designed this! Give me a name!!
in sonci fromtiers you can fight ginormous bosses and its just like shadow of the collosos and its so cool it's like vrooom i'm running up his arm, oh whoops okay byeee
Ask me about the unquenchable thirst I have to put a gun in my mouth.
Act 2 - You Make Your Own Fun (No Fun Allowed)
It takes a very boring man to admit he doesn't like Breath of the Wild. Similar to Frontiers, it's a series reinvention that cares more about the scope of its world than filling that space with anything meaningful, which hinges too much of its gameplay on frequently reused elements that overstay their welcome. However, the real appeal of Breath of the Wild is not lost on me. You really can go anywhere, you can do anything. The tools Link is given not only become necessary for exploring Hyrule, but let you break the game in fun and interesting ways. If you want, you can go straight for Hyrule Castle, or totally break out of the more restrictive tutorial area from the start to begin exploring the overworld proper. Breath of the Wild can be what you want it to be, it gives you toys and a box to play with them in and sets you loose.
Ideally, an open world Sonic game would give you an unparalleled sense of freedom, allowing you to unleash Sonic's speed and explore his world on your terms. Unfortunately, the way Sonic Frontiers is structured comes with it the expectation that the player will experience its platforming challenges from their point of origin to completion. To ensure a curated experience, Sonic's controls are made more restrictive. I'd describe the overall feel of Sonic as being a hybrid of Lost World and Sonic the Hedgehog 4.
Sonic's speed is downright sluggish coming off the heels of the "boost formula" games. Though this can be upgraded, it (along with all your other stats) have such incremental gains that they're imperceptible. Suffice it to say, you're probably going to be holding down the boost button to go anywhere, as it effectively becomes Sonic's sprint. If you stop holding the directional stick during a run or boosted jump, he'll come to a halt, meaning you have to always be directing Sonic where you want him to go rather than letting momentum take control. This makes speed feel especially artificial, there's no real weight to Sonic, no physicality to exploit. It's also a bit inconsistent too. Jump from one platform to another and use a boost to gain forward momentum, then try the same jump but instead boost off the edge of the platform and jump mid-descent. You'll gain exponentially more forward and vertical momentum than taking the more calculated jump. This doesn't feel like a feature, more like a quirk. That above clip of me flying off of the boss? I was hitting buttons to try to recover from that, the game just decided I couldn't make anymore inputs despite the fact that it doesn't really make sense that I couldn't. This happens regularly, as launching yourself high into the air off of platforms or through boost rings causes Sonic to seize up, as if to prevent him from using his newly gained verticality to get to places he's not supposed to be.
This gets especially bad when you reach Chaos Island, the third island in the game. Most of the platforming challenges in that map are locked to a 2D perspective, which about ten hours in already flies in the face of what the game has conditioned you to expect. However, it also means you're trapped. If you accidentally ran onto a boost pad that sent you careening into one of these 2D segments, you now either have to jump around while rolling the right analog stick hoping you can wrest yourself free and carry on, or complete the platforming sequence as designed. This is really annoying when you're trying to go to a specific location, or when you've already collected the associated memory token, but is also emblematic of a greater problem with Sonic Frontiers. It provides a space to play in, but you can only play on its terms.
Act 3 - Windows Login Screen Zone
Sonic's adventure on the Starfall islands takes place over three different biomes spread across five islands (yes, one biome is reused three times) and falls into the same aesthetic problem I have with the Sonic movies, in that you're sacrificing too much of the series unique visual design by plopping Sonic and his friends down in like, Nebraska. Placing Sonic into a "real" space is anathema to what I want from the series, but I also respect that this is very subjective. I'm sure someone looks at these biomes and thinks "oh yes, no more psychedelic levels for me please!"
Setting aside my preference and being critical of the presentation of Sonic Frontiers for what it is, I still think it's pretty bad. The design of the main cast of characters has not changed to suitably fit this world, with the various Titans and robots Sonic battles feeling as if they belong from a different game entirely. This visual inconsistency is made even more apparent when you jump out of a Cyberspace level. Vibrant colors transition to dull greys, washed out blues, muddy browns... Textures are soupy and low-res when they're not flickering or glitching out.
Speaking of glitches, when not busy falling through the world, you get to put up with all sorts of fun technical and performance problems. The framerate is inconsistent, sometimes fixed cameras totally fail to activate, sometimes Sonic just dies while still holding rings, and every single piece of geometry pops in about twenty feet in front of your face. In fact, the pop in is so bad that it's practically a baked-in part of the gameplay loop. I spent hours staring at the sky looking for an objective, then walking along trying to get the rest of the level to pop in so I could figure out how to get up there. On more than one occasion I was unable to actually figure out how to get a stray memory token, only to stumble hours later on the route to it a mile away. I don't know who needs to hear this, but the sense of reward a player experiences for completing a goal should not be punctuated by them saying "oh that's how I get it." Frontiers has the same shitty draw distance as a Pokemon game but is even more problematic given how much more crucial speed and exploration is to Sonic.
Act 4 - I Miss My Wife, Sonic
The one thing that I remained hopeful for with Sonic Frontiers was the promise of Ian Flynn's writing. Without getting too into the weeds on this, Flynn is the head writer for IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comic, and previously took over for Ken Penders on the Archie series following his tumultuous departure. While I haven't kept up with the Sonic comic since the license changed hands, I've enjoyed what I've read of Ian's work. It's clear he understands the characters and has a fondness for the property, and everyone seems to be in agreement that he's Good and we like what he does here.
Still, out of the loop as I may be, I think Frontiers is his weakest work. I suspect a lot of people may like it if only for its sharp tonal shift, which pushes the series away from the more comedic nature of Colors and Lost World towards something that takes itself more seriously. However, Flynn's attempt at telling a more heartfelt and introspective story comes with quite a few stumbles, resulting in a game that is often sullen, and a bit dull. I'm going to get into spoilers here, so this is your warning to bail or skip ahead.
A lot of the game's story plays out in these little heart-to-hearts with your friends, who all have their own self-doubts and fears that they've kept bottled up. They start to express these as they help the remaining Koco on Starfall island, who themselves are vessels for the memories (perhaps souls) of the island's former inhabitants. The game enters into this very predictable formula wherein each of your friends meets a Koco who very conveniently shares character traits with them, allowing them to better understand themselves and their own motivations. It's touching at first, but quickly becomes rote, ultimately muddling its sincerity. While all of this is going on, Sonic also has to deal with Sage, an AI construct created by Robotnik who is initially antagonistic towards Sonic but begins to learn about herself by observing his actions.
This is where things kinda tipped from genuine and sweet to unintentionally funny to me. The concept of Eggman developing a fatherly affection for his computer daughter is pretty silly conceptually, but in practice is meant to make you feel sympathy for this egg-shaped goober who likes putting tiny animals into robots. It doesn't really work. It's been three decades of this Teddy Roosevelt looking freak slapping "EGG" onto all his inventions and I've just kinda hit the point where I think it's impossible for me to feel like he's relatable. Maybe someone less inundated with Sonic could get into this in a way I can't, but every time Eggman is like "oh my dear sweet daughter, please don't leave me" I just think "this motherfucker went to Bean Town and put all the beans in his machine to make them mean."
There's a point where Sonic and Tails are having a bro talk. You know, like a talk between bros? And she realizes that Sonic and Tails have a connection that is distinctly human, one that she wants to experience with Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, and this hits her so hard she starts to cry and hum a sorrowful song while a montage of scenes between her and Robotnik plays in sepia tone. Except this game didn't have much of a budget for things like character animation, so all these flashbacks are just them like, standing around and flapping their mouths, and all of this is happening while she continues to hum out of key and it broke me. I laughed hysterically. Until my body hurt.
The weakest part of the whole narrative is probably its main villain. The story itself is very predictable, from the outset you'll likely come to the conclusion that the disembodied voice urging Sonic to destroy the titans is actually the bad guy, and obviously you'd be right. However, despite the fact that Sonic is clearly sharing some kind of psychic link with the big bad, you never really hear much from them. In fact, their motivation is unclear through much of the game, kept just as vague as its final form, which is perceived differently by all those who see it. What form it takes for Sonic and Sage is unknown to us, but for the player it appears as a purple moon, chosen for its symbolic connection to death. Another way of looking at it is that a sphere is very easy to render, and any asshole can slap a moon texture on one and turn that craterous bitch purple. During the final confrontation with this entity, The End, it laments how it's eternal, how it's a god unlike anything you've faced before. At least I think so, I'm not 100% sure because the reverb they put on the voice makes it a real pain to understand what it's saying. In any case, it's a really flaccid way to end the game. I don't know what exactly The End wants besides destruction, and I don't know why it wants it. It's like Necron, except - and I must stress I am not being hyperbolic about this - it feels less earned.
The stuff I did like were the bits that tried to establish some sense of narrative continuity with the rest of the series. They do just enough to make it clear that all the games (including Team Sonic Racing and Sonic Riders) have canonically taken place, though they don't try to untangle all the inconsistencies this brings. It's clear Flynn is taking the stance that everything happened, but also you probably shouldn't think about it and try to just relax (la la la.) There will maybe be some changes to Sonic lore that people as mentally stunted as I might take exception to, like Chaos being a space alien and the chaos emeralds coming from his home planet. I don't mind that they've given the emeralds a little more context without over-explaining them, and the Master Emerald is established to be of terrestrial origin, which almost feels like a bit of an out. Like maybe the Chaos Emeralds aren't from space but just ended up there for a bit through like, a warp zone or something. I don't know. They're doing that kinda shit all the time.
I don't have any friends because I talk at great length about Sonic the Hedgehog lore. Playing Sonic 2 is the single worst thing to happen to the development of my brain.
Act 5 - The Future's Gonna be Great (Because I'll Be Dead!)
Takashi Iizuka made a pretty bold statement about Frontiers back in June of this year, making it clear that this game would chart the course Sonic would take for the next decade. I suppose I'll be playing Sonic again when I'm 45.
The common consensus appears to be that Frontiers is an imperfect game that lays a promising foundation, one that is perhaps setting Sonic up for true greatness. I mean, imagine what they could do in the next game! I really wonder where that level of trust is coming from. Every time Sonic Team puts out a 3D Sonic that's well-received, they do a marginally better job in the sequel and then almost immediately thereafter blow the whole thing up. "Well, Sega has finally learned that they need to let them take their time developing a Sonic game!" My brother in Christ, for as long as this game was in development it's still riddled with problems, and if there's one group I trust less than Sonic Team, it's Sega. I'm like 35 or 38? I've been doing this my whole life, I know what they're capable of.
Look, I'll hedge my bets, maybe Frontiers 2 will be incredible; but even if it is relative to this game, it's not for me. I don't like open zone Sonic, I think it's conceptually rotten. Say what you will about Lost World, but at least it had unique levels with their own gimmicks to keep gameplay fresh. Talk all the crap you want about Forces, I'll be right there with you, but at least you could bust that game open in ways that makes even the most amateur speedrunner feel like a pro.
Sonic has been a lot of things over the years. It was never in the series DNA to remain static, and long running franchises are often expected to evolve or die, so I certainly accept that experimentation is not only good, but necessary. Frontiers is not the first time Sonic has been reinvented. It's not even the second or the third. But this time Sonic has lost something important, that ethos that has always beat at the heart of every game, helping the series endure through good times and bad. Early in the game, Amy Rose makes an observation about the Starfall Islands that really puts it best:
"The land feels sad and empty."
This is going to be a long review. I'm going to cut Sonic open like a frog and teach you how every part of him works. If you don't have the time or the stomach for that, then the short version is this: Sonic Frontiers reinvents the series by trading substance for scope, morphing Sonic into an extremely dry collect-a-thon that is every bit as mechanically confused as it is buggy, and which despite its many callbacks has completely divorced itself from the series' soul. It is the worst major release I've played in 2022 (Although I just started Gungrave G.O.R.E. so... we'll see about that!), and I think it is sad that Sonic fans have been so mistreated they see mediocrity as greatness.
For those still seated in the operating theater, my tools are sterilized and the patient is on the table. Lets get into them guts.
THE LONG VERSION
Act 1 - The Gameplay Loop is a Mobius Strip from Which There is No Escape
Sonic Frontiers all but abandons the more focused level-based structure of past games for a new "open zone" design, which you could deconstruct to mean "open world," though I would liken it closer to a collect-a-thon. There's no shotage of crap for Sonic to collect, from Chaos Emeralds to memory tokens, defense and power seeds, keys, fishing coins, Koco, gears and egg memos... When you're first dropped onto the Starfall Islands and introduced to these various collectables and their functions, it almost starts to get ridiculous. Those opening hours suffer from a sort of "forest through the trees" problem where the basic rhythm of progression is made unclear by the sheer amount of items you're being asked to manage. This problem sorts itself out in time and you begin to understand what you need to do to push the story forward and what is superfluous, but none of it ever comes together in a way that provides a satisfying sense of flow.
I think this is reflected most prominently in the amount of disparate level elements littering each island. I want to emphasize the word "litter" because they're often strewn about like discarded trash, rarely connecting with one another in a way that feels intentional. Much of your time exploring Starfall will be spent jumping into and out of these short platforming challenges to collect memory tokens, necessary for freeing your friends and progressing the story. They're composed of the same core elements: grey platforms, springs, rails, speed pads, boost rings, balloons... Each one is just another reconfiguration of the same fifteen-or-so pieces, almost like it was assembled in a consumer-friendly level editor. You can see the seams. This sort of cookie cutter design caused them to wear thin for me after the second island, and though I've not run the math to back up this figure, I'd say something like 70% of them just sort of play themselves.
Once you've collected a token, you're (usually) sent flying back onto land. That's it, you got one, time to move on to the next. There are no bespoke gimmicks per island, no quicksand on Ares or snowboarding on Chaos to make use of the unique qualities of the biomes you visit in the way that every other platforming game would. It's just the same combinations of prefab geometry every single time for 20-30 hours.
Breaking up the monotony are Cyberspace levels, which each island has a small number of. These short independent zones play similar to the "boost" style of levels found in previous 3D Sonic games and are probably the best part of Sonic Frontiers as a whole. This starts to make sense though when you realize the level layouts are ripped from other, better Sonic games. "Wait a minute... this is White Jungle! Hold on, this is just City Escape!" Oh Sonic Adventure 2, how I've misjudged you. Sonic Team could not be bothered to come up with more than a pinch of unique layouts for these levels, which are themselves 75% asset flips from Sonic Generation. Enough of this, please. I am so sick of seeing Green Hill. Chemical Plant as lost all of its power, I am no longer nostalgic for Sky Sanctuary. Great investment, that Generations. They've been picking its bones since 2011.
And yet, borne from a lack of effort and a dearth of originality, Cyberspace is Sonic Frontier's greatest strength. "Sonic had a rough transition to 3D," bitch I'm playing good 3D Sonic levels from the last 20+ years in the new 3D Sonic, which otherwise completely fails to be fun. These levels come from games that may have been uneven experiences, but which held tight something Frontiers has let go: the tenet that Sonic games excel when platforming works rhythmically with speed.
Launched back out of Cyberspace and into the dire landscapes of Sonic Frontier's open zones, there's a few more things you can do, like collecting Koco and red and blue seeds to upgrade Sonic's stats, a feature I'm convinced exists to pad out the experience and trick players into thinking they're making meaningful progress.
Rings and speed can only be upgraded by visiting the Elder Koco, the currency for which are young Koco you find throughout the island or in Big's finishing minigame. The formula for how much Koco equates to one skill point is unclear, and when you're turning them over you don't actually see how many are leaving your possession or how many points you're gaining in turn. You then bank these points into your desired stat, one... at a time. Very slowly. In this clip, I am mashing the buttons to get through this as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, you can visit the Hermit Koco to upgrade your defense and strength, except this Koco will just consume all the red and blue seeds you've collected and automatically upgrade the corresponding stats accordingly. So, what the hell? There's one guy over here who lets me upgrade my stats instantly, but he only lets me upgrade two of my four stats, and then I got this bozo over here who makes me slog through his menus for the other two? Why isn't there just one NPC who handles my stats? Why are there three upgrade currencies instead of four? Or better yet, why isn't there one currency that I can allocate however I wish? These characters are not voiced and when you talk to them it doesn't denote who is speaking so there was multiple times where I didn't know if the Koco was talking or Sonic. Who designed this! Give me a name!!
in sonci fromtiers you can fight ginormous bosses and its just like shadow of the collosos and its so cool it's like vrooom i'm running up his arm, oh whoops okay byeee
Ask me about the unquenchable thirst I have to put a gun in my mouth.
Act 2 - You Make Your Own Fun (No Fun Allowed)
It takes a very boring man to admit he doesn't like Breath of the Wild. Similar to Frontiers, it's a series reinvention that cares more about the scope of its world than filling that space with anything meaningful, which hinges too much of its gameplay on frequently reused elements that overstay their welcome. However, the real appeal of Breath of the Wild is not lost on me. You really can go anywhere, you can do anything. The tools Link is given not only become necessary for exploring Hyrule, but let you break the game in fun and interesting ways. If you want, you can go straight for Hyrule Castle, or totally break out of the more restrictive tutorial area from the start to begin exploring the overworld proper. Breath of the Wild can be what you want it to be, it gives you toys and a box to play with them in and sets you loose.
Ideally, an open world Sonic game would give you an unparalleled sense of freedom, allowing you to unleash Sonic's speed and explore his world on your terms. Unfortunately, the way Sonic Frontiers is structured comes with it the expectation that the player will experience its platforming challenges from their point of origin to completion. To ensure a curated experience, Sonic's controls are made more restrictive. I'd describe the overall feel of Sonic as being a hybrid of Lost World and Sonic the Hedgehog 4.
Sonic's speed is downright sluggish coming off the heels of the "boost formula" games. Though this can be upgraded, it (along with all your other stats) have such incremental gains that they're imperceptible. Suffice it to say, you're probably going to be holding down the boost button to go anywhere, as it effectively becomes Sonic's sprint. If you stop holding the directional stick during a run or boosted jump, he'll come to a halt, meaning you have to always be directing Sonic where you want him to go rather than letting momentum take control. This makes speed feel especially artificial, there's no real weight to Sonic, no physicality to exploit. It's also a bit inconsistent too. Jump from one platform to another and use a boost to gain forward momentum, then try the same jump but instead boost off the edge of the platform and jump mid-descent. You'll gain exponentially more forward and vertical momentum than taking the more calculated jump. This doesn't feel like a feature, more like a quirk. That above clip of me flying off of the boss? I was hitting buttons to try to recover from that, the game just decided I couldn't make anymore inputs despite the fact that it doesn't really make sense that I couldn't. This happens regularly, as launching yourself high into the air off of platforms or through boost rings causes Sonic to seize up, as if to prevent him from using his newly gained verticality to get to places he's not supposed to be.
This gets especially bad when you reach Chaos Island, the third island in the game. Most of the platforming challenges in that map are locked to a 2D perspective, which about ten hours in already flies in the face of what the game has conditioned you to expect. However, it also means you're trapped. If you accidentally ran onto a boost pad that sent you careening into one of these 2D segments, you now either have to jump around while rolling the right analog stick hoping you can wrest yourself free and carry on, or complete the platforming sequence as designed. This is really annoying when you're trying to go to a specific location, or when you've already collected the associated memory token, but is also emblematic of a greater problem with Sonic Frontiers. It provides a space to play in, but you can only play on its terms.
Act 3 - Windows Login Screen Zone
Sonic's adventure on the Starfall islands takes place over three different biomes spread across five islands (yes, one biome is reused three times) and falls into the same aesthetic problem I have with the Sonic movies, in that you're sacrificing too much of the series unique visual design by plopping Sonic and his friends down in like, Nebraska. Placing Sonic into a "real" space is anathema to what I want from the series, but I also respect that this is very subjective. I'm sure someone looks at these biomes and thinks "oh yes, no more psychedelic levels for me please!"
Setting aside my preference and being critical of the presentation of Sonic Frontiers for what it is, I still think it's pretty bad. The design of the main cast of characters has not changed to suitably fit this world, with the various Titans and robots Sonic battles feeling as if they belong from a different game entirely. This visual inconsistency is made even more apparent when you jump out of a Cyberspace level. Vibrant colors transition to dull greys, washed out blues, muddy browns... Textures are soupy and low-res when they're not flickering or glitching out.
Speaking of glitches, when not busy falling through the world, you get to put up with all sorts of fun technical and performance problems. The framerate is inconsistent, sometimes fixed cameras totally fail to activate, sometimes Sonic just dies while still holding rings, and every single piece of geometry pops in about twenty feet in front of your face. In fact, the pop in is so bad that it's practically a baked-in part of the gameplay loop. I spent hours staring at the sky looking for an objective, then walking along trying to get the rest of the level to pop in so I could figure out how to get up there. On more than one occasion I was unable to actually figure out how to get a stray memory token, only to stumble hours later on the route to it a mile away. I don't know who needs to hear this, but the sense of reward a player experiences for completing a goal should not be punctuated by them saying "oh that's how I get it." Frontiers has the same shitty draw distance as a Pokemon game but is even more problematic given how much more crucial speed and exploration is to Sonic.
Act 4 - I Miss My Wife, Sonic
The one thing that I remained hopeful for with Sonic Frontiers was the promise of Ian Flynn's writing. Without getting too into the weeds on this, Flynn is the head writer for IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comic, and previously took over for Ken Penders on the Archie series following his tumultuous departure. While I haven't kept up with the Sonic comic since the license changed hands, I've enjoyed what I've read of Ian's work. It's clear he understands the characters and has a fondness for the property, and everyone seems to be in agreement that he's Good and we like what he does here.
Still, out of the loop as I may be, I think Frontiers is his weakest work. I suspect a lot of people may like it if only for its sharp tonal shift, which pushes the series away from the more comedic nature of Colors and Lost World towards something that takes itself more seriously. However, Flynn's attempt at telling a more heartfelt and introspective story comes with quite a few stumbles, resulting in a game that is often sullen, and a bit dull. I'm going to get into spoilers here, so this is your warning to bail or skip ahead.
A lot of the game's story plays out in these little heart-to-hearts with your friends, who all have their own self-doubts and fears that they've kept bottled up. They start to express these as they help the remaining Koco on Starfall island, who themselves are vessels for the memories (perhaps souls) of the island's former inhabitants. The game enters into this very predictable formula wherein each of your friends meets a Koco who very conveniently shares character traits with them, allowing them to better understand themselves and their own motivations. It's touching at first, but quickly becomes rote, ultimately muddling its sincerity. While all of this is going on, Sonic also has to deal with Sage, an AI construct created by Robotnik who is initially antagonistic towards Sonic but begins to learn about herself by observing his actions.
This is where things kinda tipped from genuine and sweet to unintentionally funny to me. The concept of Eggman developing a fatherly affection for his computer daughter is pretty silly conceptually, but in practice is meant to make you feel sympathy for this egg-shaped goober who likes putting tiny animals into robots. It doesn't really work. It's been three decades of this Teddy Roosevelt looking freak slapping "EGG" onto all his inventions and I've just kinda hit the point where I think it's impossible for me to feel like he's relatable. Maybe someone less inundated with Sonic could get into this in a way I can't, but every time Eggman is like "oh my dear sweet daughter, please don't leave me" I just think "this motherfucker went to Bean Town and put all the beans in his machine to make them mean."
There's a point where Sonic and Tails are having a bro talk. You know, like a talk between bros? And she realizes that Sonic and Tails have a connection that is distinctly human, one that she wants to experience with Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, and this hits her so hard she starts to cry and hum a sorrowful song while a montage of scenes between her and Robotnik plays in sepia tone. Except this game didn't have much of a budget for things like character animation, so all these flashbacks are just them like, standing around and flapping their mouths, and all of this is happening while she continues to hum out of key and it broke me. I laughed hysterically. Until my body hurt.
The weakest part of the whole narrative is probably its main villain. The story itself is very predictable, from the outset you'll likely come to the conclusion that the disembodied voice urging Sonic to destroy the titans is actually the bad guy, and obviously you'd be right. However, despite the fact that Sonic is clearly sharing some kind of psychic link with the big bad, you never really hear much from them. In fact, their motivation is unclear through much of the game, kept just as vague as its final form, which is perceived differently by all those who see it. What form it takes for Sonic and Sage is unknown to us, but for the player it appears as a purple moon, chosen for its symbolic connection to death. Another way of looking at it is that a sphere is very easy to render, and any asshole can slap a moon texture on one and turn that craterous bitch purple. During the final confrontation with this entity, The End, it laments how it's eternal, how it's a god unlike anything you've faced before. At least I think so, I'm not 100% sure because the reverb they put on the voice makes it a real pain to understand what it's saying. In any case, it's a really flaccid way to end the game. I don't know what exactly The End wants besides destruction, and I don't know why it wants it. It's like Necron, except - and I must stress I am not being hyperbolic about this - it feels less earned.
The stuff I did like were the bits that tried to establish some sense of narrative continuity with the rest of the series. They do just enough to make it clear that all the games (including Team Sonic Racing and Sonic Riders) have canonically taken place, though they don't try to untangle all the inconsistencies this brings. It's clear Flynn is taking the stance that everything happened, but also you probably shouldn't think about it and try to just relax (la la la.) There will maybe be some changes to Sonic lore that people as mentally stunted as I might take exception to, like Chaos being a space alien and the chaos emeralds coming from his home planet. I don't mind that they've given the emeralds a little more context without over-explaining them, and the Master Emerald is established to be of terrestrial origin, which almost feels like a bit of an out. Like maybe the Chaos Emeralds aren't from space but just ended up there for a bit through like, a warp zone or something. I don't know. They're doing that kinda shit all the time.
I don't have any friends because I talk at great length about Sonic the Hedgehog lore. Playing Sonic 2 is the single worst thing to happen to the development of my brain.
Act 5 - The Future's Gonna be Great (Because I'll Be Dead!)
Takashi Iizuka made a pretty bold statement about Frontiers back in June of this year, making it clear that this game would chart the course Sonic would take for the next decade. I suppose I'll be playing Sonic again when I'm 45.
The common consensus appears to be that Frontiers is an imperfect game that lays a promising foundation, one that is perhaps setting Sonic up for true greatness. I mean, imagine what they could do in the next game! I really wonder where that level of trust is coming from. Every time Sonic Team puts out a 3D Sonic that's well-received, they do a marginally better job in the sequel and then almost immediately thereafter blow the whole thing up. "Well, Sega has finally learned that they need to let them take their time developing a Sonic game!" My brother in Christ, for as long as this game was in development it's still riddled with problems, and if there's one group I trust less than Sonic Team, it's Sega. I'm like 35 or 38? I've been doing this my whole life, I know what they're capable of.
Look, I'll hedge my bets, maybe Frontiers 2 will be incredible; but even if it is relative to this game, it's not for me. I don't like open zone Sonic, I think it's conceptually rotten. Say what you will about Lost World, but at least it had unique levels with their own gimmicks to keep gameplay fresh. Talk all the crap you want about Forces, I'll be right there with you, but at least you could bust that game open in ways that makes even the most amateur speedrunner feel like a pro.
Sonic has been a lot of things over the years. It was never in the series DNA to remain static, and long running franchises are often expected to evolve or die, so I certainly accept that experimentation is not only good, but necessary. Frontiers is not the first time Sonic has been reinvented. It's not even the second or the third. But this time Sonic has lost something important, that ethos that has always beat at the heart of every game, helping the series endure through good times and bad. Early in the game, Amy Rose makes an observation about the Starfall Islands that really puts it best:
"The land feels sad and empty."
jump to the bottom of this review for the optimal physics settings. game is ass without them. thank me later
frustratingly close to being the best sonic game ever. with proper momentum there would be little contest, but thankfully the freeflowing open world promotes speed and precision above all else. if you're playing the game as it's intended you won't really ever be standing still, and thanks to sonic's, well... speed - frontiers may be the only open world game in the past ten or more years to actually justify its own vastness
regardless, the lack of momentum is still a problem during the few sections that are strictly 2d. i have no idea why there are levels that depend on inertia in a game where your character literally grinds himself to a halt every time you're not holding forward. all of this could be fixed if sonic only stopped after gradually losing speed or when holding a braking button or something, but because nothing like that is in place there's a few especially jarring sequences here and there
momentum aside, my only other complaint is the deceptive progression and noticeable lack of budget. i was really eager to see all five islands and what kinds of biomes they'd cover or what other characters may pop up. unfortunately the last two are pretty disingenuously labeled. think of the actual zone count as 3.5 and you wont be too underwhelmed - the first three are pretty massive areas anyway. i just wanted more. it's been a while since i've played a 30+ hour game that i didn't want to end
i'm incredibly eager to see what comes next. i hope sonic team picks up on frontiers' slack and puts out the actual best game in the franchise next time
optimal settings:
starting speed: 60
initial boost speed: 90
turning speed: 100
boost turning speed: 20
top speed: 100
steering sensitivity: 100
acceleration: 50
bounce height: 100
the most important things here are the third, fourth, and sixth options. sonic steers like a fucking tank otherwise. i'd recommend dropping the camera distance to 40 and upping its speed to 70ish but that's up to preference
edit: with the update this all stays the same. you'll just want to also turn deceleration completely off and keep the deceleration rate somewhere around 90 to 100 depending on what you prefer. i'm not a fan of stopping completely on a dime, but anything below 90 gets real stupid real fast
frustratingly close to being the best sonic game ever. with proper momentum there would be little contest, but thankfully the freeflowing open world promotes speed and precision above all else. if you're playing the game as it's intended you won't really ever be standing still, and thanks to sonic's, well... speed - frontiers may be the only open world game in the past ten or more years to actually justify its own vastness
regardless, the lack of momentum is still a problem during the few sections that are strictly 2d. i have no idea why there are levels that depend on inertia in a game where your character literally grinds himself to a halt every time you're not holding forward. all of this could be fixed if sonic only stopped after gradually losing speed or when holding a braking button or something, but because nothing like that is in place there's a few especially jarring sequences here and there
momentum aside, my only other complaint is the deceptive progression and noticeable lack of budget. i was really eager to see all five islands and what kinds of biomes they'd cover or what other characters may pop up. unfortunately the last two are pretty disingenuously labeled. think of the actual zone count as 3.5 and you wont be too underwhelmed - the first three are pretty massive areas anyway. i just wanted more. it's been a while since i've played a 30+ hour game that i didn't want to end
i'm incredibly eager to see what comes next. i hope sonic team picks up on frontiers' slack and puts out the actual best game in the franchise next time
optimal settings:
starting speed: 60
initial boost speed: 90
turning speed: 100
boost turning speed: 20
top speed: 100
steering sensitivity: 100
acceleration: 50
bounce height: 100
the most important things here are the third, fourth, and sixth options. sonic steers like a fucking tank otherwise. i'd recommend dropping the camera distance to 40 and upping its speed to 70ish but that's up to preference
edit: with the update this all stays the same. you'll just want to also turn deceleration completely off and keep the deceleration rate somewhere around 90 to 100 depending on what you prefer. i'm not a fan of stopping completely on a dime, but anything below 90 gets real stupid real fast
âWhat you see is what you get: Just a guy that loves adventure!â
| | THE WORLD IS SONIC | |
Naruto-running past you in the park. The bend of a minigolf ball careening wildly between walls and slopes. A bike yanked by gravity down the neighborhood hill. Pinballs smattering between bright lights and crashing machinery. The imaginary running man sprinting beside your car on the sidewalk, leaping over the streets and pedestrians.
Universe Is Sonic.
Neon colors and sharp, fashionable vectors. A nostalgic minor fourth. A âdocxâ file with elaborate descriptions of an unknown figureâs likes, dislikes, origins and realities. 444,600 results on the worldâs most popular art website. 240p anime playlist from 2009. Playground rumors, cosplay, metal remixes, YM2612 emulation, physics, debate, AMV, theatrical film, CMYK, baseball caps, webcomics, lawsuits, and designer shoes.
As a game and character, Sonicâs freedom-loving spirit and energy transcends barriers, beloved by people of all gender, ethnic, racial and neurological spectrums.
Sonic Is Universe.
| | THE CRINGE IS SONIC | |
Sonic in the modern eye is an object of ridicule and an ethereal mascot of the cringe culture boogeyman. You canât so much as acknowledge Sonicâs existence without drawing ire and daft comparisons to princess-kissing, vertical-glitching, gun-toting embarrassment.
The Genesis originals were born out of anti-Nintendo competition - a story not worth repeating, but itâs notable for being a conversational millstone around the franchiseâs entire existence. At every point in time, Sonic as a video game has strived to be its own style, but the marketing factors around it prevent the larger gaming press from seeing it outside any contrast but âhow does this compare to Mario?â. An exhausting scenario that not only neglects the franchiseâs individuality, but glosses over the figurative and literal development hell thatâs plagued Sonic Team at the hands of Yuji Naka and SEGAâs business personnel.
| | SUITS RUIN EVERYTHING | |
Sonic did not have a rough transition into 3D.
It DID, however, have a violent transition into post-console SEGA.
At every turning point of history, Sonic has been unable to outrun tight deadlines and under-financing, with Sonic 1 being pitched at a point in time where Sega was aghast to the idea of spending more than 3 months time on a single video game, and 2 and 3K both rushed to meet consumer demand among growing trends. The final straw was the financial failure of the Dreamcast. With Sonic jumping multi-platform and creative leads wanting to market the series to every possible age and console demographic, the games had to cover ten times as much ground with only a fraction of the budget. SA2 was produced with only a third the staff of SA1, Heroes was infamously rushed, Shadow was born out of SEGAâs interest in pulling the mature crowd, etc etc. Sonic 06 was the killing blow, with its budget cut in half so Naka could produce a Wii spin-off, also at a time where the entire industry was struggling to adapt to shoddy 7th gen hardware and hi-fi design trends. The creative endeavors of Sonic Team never wavered, yet the environmental factors and outright stupidity of The-Powers-That-Be doomed the series.
| | THE CHILD IS SONIC | |
I was spinning my arms really fast, fists in a circle in front of me. They were spinning like feet. Sonicâs feet. Woosh.
| | NOSTALGIA AND SELF-EMBARRASSMENT | |
Sonicâs combination of unique design and unfortunate circumstances invites a loud, volatile fanbase - though âfanâ is maybe too charitable to a culture that is encouraged and rewarded for hostility. Youtubers, journalists, and influencers with no qualification whatsoever in game design all flocked to Sonic like vultures darting at a lionâs carcass, quick to reinterpret the seriesâ financial struggle as a fearmonger against progress. âSonic canât be 3D! Sonicâs friends are invalid! Sonic canât compete with Mario! The classics were better!â Itâs a conversation that is 100% functionally impossible to avoid in any long-term discussion of the hedgehog. A conversation loud enough for SEGA to hear and take to heart.
Since 06, Sonic games have been extremely reluctant to embrace themselves as what theyâre meant to be, trying to cater not just to more audiences across the consumer board, but to malicious posers who donât have a goddamn clue what theyâre talking about - and ultimately, no interest in the games for what they truly are. The writingâs on the wall, everywhere from Colors-onward works featuring Saturday Morning writers that equally see Sonicâs adventures as one big noodle incident, to constant callbacks in unnatural 2D sections and much-aligned Green Hill revivals. Thereâs been tons of great moments and projects born within the cracks, but there is a universal truth that must be acknowledged: Post-06 Sega is embarrassed of Modern Sonic.
| | CULTURE PANIC: VULNERABILITY, INSECURITY AND CONFRONTATIONALISM | |
Sonic Frontiers is announced with the most bafflingly poor marketing approach in the entire industry. The âSonic is badâ cycle starts up again and journalists continue to rake in the hate clicks.
Then demos and invites to events start getting thrown to press. And all of a sudden, coverage is, positive? Reactions are optimistic and excited? Not just from Sonic fans, but from the journalist sphere as a whole?
It has a full 4-year development cycle and actual funding???
The road to Sonic Frontiersâ release triggered an insane frontload of anxiety into the internet, and bad-faith content creators were quick to profit off of it. Pre-release reactions have been nothing short of chaotic, with moments ranging from attacks at Ian Flynn, doxxing, in-fighting about the most microscopic movement design details, and so on. I couldnât help but be exhausted by how much effort nay-sayers were putting into starting discourse when they could just move on to a game series they do like.
And then it hit me.
Sonic critics love Sonic, but are really, really embarrassed to admit it.
Sonic takes an extreme vulnerability to love because it's a series about being emotionally vulnerable - like Kingdom Hearts. Theyâre loud, sincere stories that breed affection, love, self-identity, - bullet points that attract ire, the same way a 5-year-old dismisses a Disney princess flick for âbeing girlyâ. And people are really harsh to admit it, because itâs easier to pass it off as âbad writingâ or âcringeâ, interfacing with canon exclusively through ironic layers - but why else would they stay invested in a series for so many decades if there wasnât something deeply personal they were getting out of it?
The cause-and-effect of this was that Sonic fans - that being, people that love the series, stories and games, unfiltered from irony - became INCREDIBLY anxious about their interest in it. It's not hard for that to happen when 90% of your community is on the spectrum and already endures abject hate for the crime of Being Different.
Objectivism became weaponized against fandom, and is the reason why we have theorycrafters debating every little detail of every single game - millions of arbitrary, asinine ââââdesignââââ tests that each game has to be rotoscoped underneath. And whenever people do like something in the series that fails to meet objectivism, they have to conform to the âhaha, itâs cringe, but i like it :)â moniker - the only acceptable way to phrase affection to 3D Sonic today. Itâs a perpetual motion machine.
For me, Frontiers discourse became too overwhelming and I did the smarter thing of distancing myself from it until I could actually play it. It was all just so much to take in, that I couldnât even put any energy into getting excited for Frontiers announcements - because what if it didnât meet expectations? What kind of discourse would I have to be surrounded by for the next 4 years? How many young fans who did love the game would be ridiculed and bullied by grown-ass adults over this shit, again, as the case has been for over 20 goddamn years?
| | SONIC FRONTIERS IS OUT | |
Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhholy fucking shit dude
| | THE ARCHIVE IS SONIC | |
Battle Network is really cool. The internet is bright and wild.
Loose data, like thoughts flowing in the mind.
Is it possible to explore them, and would I want to if I could�
| | OPEN ZONES AND CYBERSPACE: DICHOTOMY OF NOISE | |
Sonic Frontiers splits gameplay between the more experimental, sandbox-y open zone islands and the traditional, focused boost stages in cyberspace. While this change means that most of Frontiers lacks proper level design (something thatâs really important to Sonic being a good platformer), Sonic Team traded off by min/maxing every facet of control possible. Almost every move Sonicâs been able to pull off since Adventure 1 is here in a single, cohesive moveset, and youâre given free reign to tweak individual acceleration, turning and speed parameters in the options. This is the best Sonic has ever felt in a 3D space, period.
Open Zones are deceptively-addicting to explore, arguably doing the shtick better than some of the games it was inspired by. The worlds are a really odd bunch; barren, realistic ruins populated by inorganic clusters of stock platforms, rails and obstacles. It looks cheap at a screenshotâs glance, but suits the game tonally and facilitates world traversal by allowing you to jettison ahead to your map markers while constantly taking detours into gimmick sections for goodies at a whim. Itâs not seamless, but thatâs what makes it cool: You, as Sonic, are physically breaking the seams of the world to burst around wherever you want. If this isnât some of the most metal game design of the entire series, I donât know what could give it a run for its money.
Cyberspace is for the traditional boost gameplay, contained ala the BOTW shrines. Itâs hard to hype these up because they re-use old assets and stage layouts, but it works out because they find a way to contextualize it in the story really well, and Sonicâs improved gamefeel makes these stages feel pristine. Playing these returning SA2 and Unleashed/Gen maps with the most precise-yet-forgiving movement the series has ever is sublime, and more than anything, it was the first time I played Boost-formula Sonic and felt like I was the one controlling the world instead of being confined by it. Thereâs so many opportunities for tech, skips, and smooth recoveries, that it makes the prior games obsolete in terms of functionality. Only thing I donât like about them is the 2D stages, which still feel too static and uneventful for this type of moveset.
When both of these gameplay formats are put together, a near-perfect loop is created. I treated open-zone as a jungle gym to throw myself around in, wander aimlessly and be rambunctious. Itâs a loud, intoxicating environment with a lot of shit trying to take your attention away, like an abstract painting. And when it all gets to be too much, cyberspace becomes this therapeutic retreat, to refocus your senses on a more concrete and goal-driven game style.
| | THE WOUND IS SONIC | |
I remember being angry over video games. I was a sore loser when he beat me at Sonic. I cared more about video games than family.
Does he still think about it?
| | NOSTALGIA: MEMORIES AND THE PAST AS A VESSEL TO THE FUTURE | |
Frontiersâ content is nostalgia-heavy, as has been the case for Sonic since 4 ep1, but itâs not as a fandom safety blanket this time: Itâs thematic (Itâs also to save money, but we already established Sonic is expensive and Sega penny-pinches, so, whatâs the use in complaining lmao). Old franchise concepts that havenât been touched forever get re-introduced and given proper lore, relevant to both the franchiseâs long-running chronicle and the immediate plot. Sonicâs not traveling through old levels just for retro funsies; theyâre actual distortions of his memories of his old adventures that the cyberspace computers are making him re-experience.
And that's the hook: Ian Flynnâs prose benches heavily on memories, as ethereal feelings and concepts to directly interface with. The central antagonistic force is the ancient technology of Starfall islands, imprisoning Sonic and co. between their physical and spiritual selves. Sonic escapes its effects at first, but has to absorb its negative after-effects to free Amy, Tails and Knuckles. Coming from other games, youâd expect to save them at the end of the world, have a âthank youâ moment and move on; instead, you save them at the start of the world, and they accompany you throughout,. Itâs a good setup for giving these characters screentime and development that they haven't seen in decades, but itâs also to depict the trauma and subsequent healing they experience. Everyone remains hurt from the cyberspace exposure after being rescued, and Sonic plays the role of a mediator to their struggles. Heâs a bit dismissive to them at first - wanting to rush ahead, âgotta go fastâ, âoutrun my demonsâ and stuff, - but heâs quick to empathize with their pain. He doesnât try to âsolveâ their problems or wrestle into their mind, but reaches out as a shoulder to cry on: Asking how they feel, making them feel strong for bearing through it, and sharing sentimental memories as they go. And the way he interfaces with the cast beautifully illustrates the differences in relationships he has with everyone: Being tender and mentor-like to Amy and Tails, but having a more dude-bro and silently-acknowledged heart-to-heart with Knuckles (he also flirts the shit out of him).
| | ARTIFICIAL HEART: GOSSAMER BETWEEN THE COGS | |
Data-centric technology has fundamentally changed all facets of humanity, our self-expression, and our forms of communication. We embrace some parts of it, and reject others, all based on differences in fundamental and ethical values.
AI is contentious: A hyperbolic name assigned to the programming concept of automation through observation and repetition of pre-configured or adaptable parameters. We come to understand it through the lens of a fake being that cherry-picks choices for you, and thatâs Silicon Valleyâs most vainly-spoken application of the concept - but, AI really just means âwe programmed a non-human thing to make choices based on data we feed itâ. Your YouTube recommendations are AI. Your Tinder matches are AI. The shitty SNK boss that stole your laundromat quarters is AI.
We all know and experience a âgrossâ brand of AI, especially in the Musk-dominated dystopia. Self-driving cars that have and continue to kill living human beings, by design. Advanced militarization of robotic dogs and walkers, that have and will continue to kill and terrorize in the name of capital. Basement-dwelling gremlins that twist and distort humanist works of art into algorithm-blended, eye-straining canvas smears. Social media platforms that actively reward dissention and misinformation. The literary world of artists is all-aware of this, and itâs not even remotely a new concept: From as early as the 1930âs and beyond, the wondrous-yet-horrifying automaton is the tropal prefigurement of action and sci-fi.
And Sonic loves this shit.
Sonicâs most common adversaries are Eggmanâs and othersâ robotic creations, and a recurring trope in their stories is the tried-and-true ârobot becoming human in spiritâ jam session. Theyâre also some of Ian Flynnâs favorite characters to write - in turn, his best. The ever-iconic Metal Sonicâs core identity is a facsimile of another, and his perpetual identity crisis feeds his rage across both the games and comics. Gamma is the fandom favorite, with his tear-inducing story of silent sacrifice and redemption in the original Adventure. Omegaâs militarian specs and transparent honesty make for a character thatâs perpetually direct to friends and foes alike, violently deadpan in his own vocab-broken way. These characters shine high not just as individuals, but for their ability to foil the flawed, creatural cast of heroes.
Sage - Frontiersâ new token OC, - is one of the best because sheâs the most gently-overdriven version of the unfeeling automation, while taking on the most distinctly-human appearance and mannerisms of a Sonic series robot to date. The ultimate planeswalker between data and spirit; a character whose snark and bitterness is always hard to discern as a product of AI or personality. Sheâs number-obsessed, living solely on the wings of objectivism, while having to deal with Sonicâs mind-on-my-sleeve, impulsive bullshit. Sheâs so impossibly strong of a character at all of the storyâs best moments, and Iâm desperate for her to get inducted into the mainline cast going forward. Iâd love to gush so much more about her and the overall plot, but these beats are better fresh and unspoiled.
| | THE VECTOR IS SONIC | |
Drawn spiky hair is beautiful. It blows in the wind like a warm flame.
Somehow the wind never blows the flame out.
| | CHRONOLOGICAL CHOIRS | |
Music is the undeniable strongest and most consistent part of the Sonic experience. Across jazz fusion, house, disco, butt rock, metal, EDM and trance, Sonic takes the people's sounds and twists them in a way wholly unique to video games as a medium.
Frontiers is very subdued by comparison - arpeggiated melodies that are felt passively and not heard, ambient overworld music that soothes never announces its presence, and cyberspace techno that drives action but never speaks over it. I couldnât name many individual songs that match the hybrid beauty of past games, but it works great in-context and is a great change of pace. Listening to an overt melody on repeat over the course of hour-long traversal sessions is a recipe for disaster, and they found a good way to keep the musical spirit alive without having it grate.
Of course, all the angst and energy was built up and released for the titan boss themes, and GOD DAMN they go H A R D. Pent-up, cannon-fired emotions are a nonstop driver of Sonicâs penultimate tracks, but nothing can compare to the unbridled screamers Frontiers fires out in its few-but-fantastic moments.
| | ! ! ENJOY YOUR FUTURE; ITâS GONNA BE GREAT ! ! | |
Frontiers had me singing along with the larger fandom âSonic is backâ - but thatâs not new, is it? We heard it after Colors, riding on the short-term pessimism of âit doesnât have cringe!â. We heard it after Generations, only for its follow-ups to start from square one with terrible Mario knock-off design and horribly milquetoast cartoon tie-in games. We heard it after Mania, only for Forces to be âjust okayâ as an unfinished budget title.
Why does saying âSonic is backâ feel so different now?
Because Frontiers is a victory for the future: Itâs a Sonic experience that loves its past but embraces newcoming things, celebrates its beautiful castâs growing character arcs, and experiments in ways that drive ambition rather than insecurity. Like us, it accepts itself as beautiful while understanding the need to break out of its shell. Itâs a wonderful, heart-soothing, chaotic piece of work through-and-through. Without a doubt, itâs going to be a permanent sentimental star in many new Sonic fansâ hearts, the same way the Adventure games grew up with me and my generation.
âI now understand why I am here. I made a promise and Iâm here to keep it. Today, I put my past behind me.â
| | THE WORLD IS SONIC | |
Naruto-running past you in the park. The bend of a minigolf ball careening wildly between walls and slopes. A bike yanked by gravity down the neighborhood hill. Pinballs smattering between bright lights and crashing machinery. The imaginary running man sprinting beside your car on the sidewalk, leaping over the streets and pedestrians.
Universe Is Sonic.
Neon colors and sharp, fashionable vectors. A nostalgic minor fourth. A âdocxâ file with elaborate descriptions of an unknown figureâs likes, dislikes, origins and realities. 444,600 results on the worldâs most popular art website. 240p anime playlist from 2009. Playground rumors, cosplay, metal remixes, YM2612 emulation, physics, debate, AMV, theatrical film, CMYK, baseball caps, webcomics, lawsuits, and designer shoes.
As a game and character, Sonicâs freedom-loving spirit and energy transcends barriers, beloved by people of all gender, ethnic, racial and neurological spectrums.
Sonic Is Universe.
| | THE CRINGE IS SONIC | |
Sonic in the modern eye is an object of ridicule and an ethereal mascot of the cringe culture boogeyman. You canât so much as acknowledge Sonicâs existence without drawing ire and daft comparisons to princess-kissing, vertical-glitching, gun-toting embarrassment.
The Genesis originals were born out of anti-Nintendo competition - a story not worth repeating, but itâs notable for being a conversational millstone around the franchiseâs entire existence. At every point in time, Sonic as a video game has strived to be its own style, but the marketing factors around it prevent the larger gaming press from seeing it outside any contrast but âhow does this compare to Mario?â. An exhausting scenario that not only neglects the franchiseâs individuality, but glosses over the figurative and literal development hell thatâs plagued Sonic Team at the hands of Yuji Naka and SEGAâs business personnel.
| | SUITS RUIN EVERYTHING | |
Sonic did not have a rough transition into 3D.
It DID, however, have a violent transition into post-console SEGA.
At every turning point of history, Sonic has been unable to outrun tight deadlines and under-financing, with Sonic 1 being pitched at a point in time where Sega was aghast to the idea of spending more than 3 months time on a single video game, and 2 and 3K both rushed to meet consumer demand among growing trends. The final straw was the financial failure of the Dreamcast. With Sonic jumping multi-platform and creative leads wanting to market the series to every possible age and console demographic, the games had to cover ten times as much ground with only a fraction of the budget. SA2 was produced with only a third the staff of SA1, Heroes was infamously rushed, Shadow was born out of SEGAâs interest in pulling the mature crowd, etc etc. Sonic 06 was the killing blow, with its budget cut in half so Naka could produce a Wii spin-off, also at a time where the entire industry was struggling to adapt to shoddy 7th gen hardware and hi-fi design trends. The creative endeavors of Sonic Team never wavered, yet the environmental factors and outright stupidity of The-Powers-That-Be doomed the series.
| | THE CHILD IS SONIC | |
I was spinning my arms really fast, fists in a circle in front of me. They were spinning like feet. Sonicâs feet. Woosh.
| | NOSTALGIA AND SELF-EMBARRASSMENT | |
Sonicâs combination of unique design and unfortunate circumstances invites a loud, volatile fanbase - though âfanâ is maybe too charitable to a culture that is encouraged and rewarded for hostility. Youtubers, journalists, and influencers with no qualification whatsoever in game design all flocked to Sonic like vultures darting at a lionâs carcass, quick to reinterpret the seriesâ financial struggle as a fearmonger against progress. âSonic canât be 3D! Sonicâs friends are invalid! Sonic canât compete with Mario! The classics were better!â Itâs a conversation that is 100% functionally impossible to avoid in any long-term discussion of the hedgehog. A conversation loud enough for SEGA to hear and take to heart.
Since 06, Sonic games have been extremely reluctant to embrace themselves as what theyâre meant to be, trying to cater not just to more audiences across the consumer board, but to malicious posers who donât have a goddamn clue what theyâre talking about - and ultimately, no interest in the games for what they truly are. The writingâs on the wall, everywhere from Colors-onward works featuring Saturday Morning writers that equally see Sonicâs adventures as one big noodle incident, to constant callbacks in unnatural 2D sections and much-aligned Green Hill revivals. Thereâs been tons of great moments and projects born within the cracks, but there is a universal truth that must be acknowledged: Post-06 Sega is embarrassed of Modern Sonic.
| | CULTURE PANIC: VULNERABILITY, INSECURITY AND CONFRONTATIONALISM | |
Sonic Frontiers is announced with the most bafflingly poor marketing approach in the entire industry. The âSonic is badâ cycle starts up again and journalists continue to rake in the hate clicks.
Then demos and invites to events start getting thrown to press. And all of a sudden, coverage is, positive? Reactions are optimistic and excited? Not just from Sonic fans, but from the journalist sphere as a whole?
It has a full 4-year development cycle and actual funding???
The road to Sonic Frontiersâ release triggered an insane frontload of anxiety into the internet, and bad-faith content creators were quick to profit off of it. Pre-release reactions have been nothing short of chaotic, with moments ranging from attacks at Ian Flynn, doxxing, in-fighting about the most microscopic movement design details, and so on. I couldnât help but be exhausted by how much effort nay-sayers were putting into starting discourse when they could just move on to a game series they do like.
And then it hit me.
Sonic critics love Sonic, but are really, really embarrassed to admit it.
Sonic takes an extreme vulnerability to love because it's a series about being emotionally vulnerable - like Kingdom Hearts. Theyâre loud, sincere stories that breed affection, love, self-identity, - bullet points that attract ire, the same way a 5-year-old dismisses a Disney princess flick for âbeing girlyâ. And people are really harsh to admit it, because itâs easier to pass it off as âbad writingâ or âcringeâ, interfacing with canon exclusively through ironic layers - but why else would they stay invested in a series for so many decades if there wasnât something deeply personal they were getting out of it?
The cause-and-effect of this was that Sonic fans - that being, people that love the series, stories and games, unfiltered from irony - became INCREDIBLY anxious about their interest in it. It's not hard for that to happen when 90% of your community is on the spectrum and already endures abject hate for the crime of Being Different.
Objectivism became weaponized against fandom, and is the reason why we have theorycrafters debating every little detail of every single game - millions of arbitrary, asinine ââââdesignââââ tests that each game has to be rotoscoped underneath. And whenever people do like something in the series that fails to meet objectivism, they have to conform to the âhaha, itâs cringe, but i like it :)â moniker - the only acceptable way to phrase affection to 3D Sonic today. Itâs a perpetual motion machine.
For me, Frontiers discourse became too overwhelming and I did the smarter thing of distancing myself from it until I could actually play it. It was all just so much to take in, that I couldnât even put any energy into getting excited for Frontiers announcements - because what if it didnât meet expectations? What kind of discourse would I have to be surrounded by for the next 4 years? How many young fans who did love the game would be ridiculed and bullied by grown-ass adults over this shit, again, as the case has been for over 20 goddamn years?
| | SONIC FRONTIERS IS OUT | |
Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhholy fucking shit dude
| | THE ARCHIVE IS SONIC | |
Battle Network is really cool. The internet is bright and wild.
Loose data, like thoughts flowing in the mind.
Is it possible to explore them, and would I want to if I could�
| | OPEN ZONES AND CYBERSPACE: DICHOTOMY OF NOISE | |
Sonic Frontiers splits gameplay between the more experimental, sandbox-y open zone islands and the traditional, focused boost stages in cyberspace. While this change means that most of Frontiers lacks proper level design (something thatâs really important to Sonic being a good platformer), Sonic Team traded off by min/maxing every facet of control possible. Almost every move Sonicâs been able to pull off since Adventure 1 is here in a single, cohesive moveset, and youâre given free reign to tweak individual acceleration, turning and speed parameters in the options. This is the best Sonic has ever felt in a 3D space, period.
Open Zones are deceptively-addicting to explore, arguably doing the shtick better than some of the games it was inspired by. The worlds are a really odd bunch; barren, realistic ruins populated by inorganic clusters of stock platforms, rails and obstacles. It looks cheap at a screenshotâs glance, but suits the game tonally and facilitates world traversal by allowing you to jettison ahead to your map markers while constantly taking detours into gimmick sections for goodies at a whim. Itâs not seamless, but thatâs what makes it cool: You, as Sonic, are physically breaking the seams of the world to burst around wherever you want. If this isnât some of the most metal game design of the entire series, I donât know what could give it a run for its money.
Cyberspace is for the traditional boost gameplay, contained ala the BOTW shrines. Itâs hard to hype these up because they re-use old assets and stage layouts, but it works out because they find a way to contextualize it in the story really well, and Sonicâs improved gamefeel makes these stages feel pristine. Playing these returning SA2 and Unleashed/Gen maps with the most precise-yet-forgiving movement the series has ever is sublime, and more than anything, it was the first time I played Boost-formula Sonic and felt like I was the one controlling the world instead of being confined by it. Thereâs so many opportunities for tech, skips, and smooth recoveries, that it makes the prior games obsolete in terms of functionality. Only thing I donât like about them is the 2D stages, which still feel too static and uneventful for this type of moveset.
When both of these gameplay formats are put together, a near-perfect loop is created. I treated open-zone as a jungle gym to throw myself around in, wander aimlessly and be rambunctious. Itâs a loud, intoxicating environment with a lot of shit trying to take your attention away, like an abstract painting. And when it all gets to be too much, cyberspace becomes this therapeutic retreat, to refocus your senses on a more concrete and goal-driven game style.
| | THE WOUND IS SONIC | |
I remember being angry over video games. I was a sore loser when he beat me at Sonic. I cared more about video games than family.
Does he still think about it?
| | NOSTALGIA: MEMORIES AND THE PAST AS A VESSEL TO THE FUTURE | |
Frontiersâ content is nostalgia-heavy, as has been the case for Sonic since 4 ep1, but itâs not as a fandom safety blanket this time: Itâs thematic (Itâs also to save money, but we already established Sonic is expensive and Sega penny-pinches, so, whatâs the use in complaining lmao). Old franchise concepts that havenât been touched forever get re-introduced and given proper lore, relevant to both the franchiseâs long-running chronicle and the immediate plot. Sonicâs not traveling through old levels just for retro funsies; theyâre actual distortions of his memories of his old adventures that the cyberspace computers are making him re-experience.
And that's the hook: Ian Flynnâs prose benches heavily on memories, as ethereal feelings and concepts to directly interface with. The central antagonistic force is the ancient technology of Starfall islands, imprisoning Sonic and co. between their physical and spiritual selves. Sonic escapes its effects at first, but has to absorb its negative after-effects to free Amy, Tails and Knuckles. Coming from other games, youâd expect to save them at the end of the world, have a âthank youâ moment and move on; instead, you save them at the start of the world, and they accompany you throughout,. Itâs a good setup for giving these characters screentime and development that they haven't seen in decades, but itâs also to depict the trauma and subsequent healing they experience. Everyone remains hurt from the cyberspace exposure after being rescued, and Sonic plays the role of a mediator to their struggles. Heâs a bit dismissive to them at first - wanting to rush ahead, âgotta go fastâ, âoutrun my demonsâ and stuff, - but heâs quick to empathize with their pain. He doesnât try to âsolveâ their problems or wrestle into their mind, but reaches out as a shoulder to cry on: Asking how they feel, making them feel strong for bearing through it, and sharing sentimental memories as they go. And the way he interfaces with the cast beautifully illustrates the differences in relationships he has with everyone: Being tender and mentor-like to Amy and Tails, but having a more dude-bro and silently-acknowledged heart-to-heart with Knuckles (he also flirts the shit out of him).
| | ARTIFICIAL HEART: GOSSAMER BETWEEN THE COGS | |
Data-centric technology has fundamentally changed all facets of humanity, our self-expression, and our forms of communication. We embrace some parts of it, and reject others, all based on differences in fundamental and ethical values.
AI is contentious: A hyperbolic name assigned to the programming concept of automation through observation and repetition of pre-configured or adaptable parameters. We come to understand it through the lens of a fake being that cherry-picks choices for you, and thatâs Silicon Valleyâs most vainly-spoken application of the concept - but, AI really just means âwe programmed a non-human thing to make choices based on data we feed itâ. Your YouTube recommendations are AI. Your Tinder matches are AI. The shitty SNK boss that stole your laundromat quarters is AI.
We all know and experience a âgrossâ brand of AI, especially in the Musk-dominated dystopia. Self-driving cars that have and continue to kill living human beings, by design. Advanced militarization of robotic dogs and walkers, that have and will continue to kill and terrorize in the name of capital. Basement-dwelling gremlins that twist and distort humanist works of art into algorithm-blended, eye-straining canvas smears. Social media platforms that actively reward dissention and misinformation. The literary world of artists is all-aware of this, and itâs not even remotely a new concept: From as early as the 1930âs and beyond, the wondrous-yet-horrifying automaton is the tropal prefigurement of action and sci-fi.
And Sonic loves this shit.
Sonicâs most common adversaries are Eggmanâs and othersâ robotic creations, and a recurring trope in their stories is the tried-and-true ârobot becoming human in spiritâ jam session. Theyâre also some of Ian Flynnâs favorite characters to write - in turn, his best. The ever-iconic Metal Sonicâs core identity is a facsimile of another, and his perpetual identity crisis feeds his rage across both the games and comics. Gamma is the fandom favorite, with his tear-inducing story of silent sacrifice and redemption in the original Adventure. Omegaâs militarian specs and transparent honesty make for a character thatâs perpetually direct to friends and foes alike, violently deadpan in his own vocab-broken way. These characters shine high not just as individuals, but for their ability to foil the flawed, creatural cast of heroes.
Sage - Frontiersâ new token OC, - is one of the best because sheâs the most gently-overdriven version of the unfeeling automation, while taking on the most distinctly-human appearance and mannerisms of a Sonic series robot to date. The ultimate planeswalker between data and spirit; a character whose snark and bitterness is always hard to discern as a product of AI or personality. Sheâs number-obsessed, living solely on the wings of objectivism, while having to deal with Sonicâs mind-on-my-sleeve, impulsive bullshit. Sheâs so impossibly strong of a character at all of the storyâs best moments, and Iâm desperate for her to get inducted into the mainline cast going forward. Iâd love to gush so much more about her and the overall plot, but these beats are better fresh and unspoiled.
| | THE VECTOR IS SONIC | |
Drawn spiky hair is beautiful. It blows in the wind like a warm flame.
Somehow the wind never blows the flame out.
| | CHRONOLOGICAL CHOIRS | |
Music is the undeniable strongest and most consistent part of the Sonic experience. Across jazz fusion, house, disco, butt rock, metal, EDM and trance, Sonic takes the people's sounds and twists them in a way wholly unique to video games as a medium.
Frontiers is very subdued by comparison - arpeggiated melodies that are felt passively and not heard, ambient overworld music that soothes never announces its presence, and cyberspace techno that drives action but never speaks over it. I couldnât name many individual songs that match the hybrid beauty of past games, but it works great in-context and is a great change of pace. Listening to an overt melody on repeat over the course of hour-long traversal sessions is a recipe for disaster, and they found a good way to keep the musical spirit alive without having it grate.
Of course, all the angst and energy was built up and released for the titan boss themes, and GOD DAMN they go H A R D. Pent-up, cannon-fired emotions are a nonstop driver of Sonicâs penultimate tracks, but nothing can compare to the unbridled screamers Frontiers fires out in its few-but-fantastic moments.
| | ! ! ENJOY YOUR FUTURE; ITâS GONNA BE GREAT ! ! | |
Frontiers had me singing along with the larger fandom âSonic is backâ - but thatâs not new, is it? We heard it after Colors, riding on the short-term pessimism of âit doesnât have cringe!â. We heard it after Generations, only for its follow-ups to start from square one with terrible Mario knock-off design and horribly milquetoast cartoon tie-in games. We heard it after Mania, only for Forces to be âjust okayâ as an unfinished budget title.
Why does saying âSonic is backâ feel so different now?
Because Frontiers is a victory for the future: Itâs a Sonic experience that loves its past but embraces newcoming things, celebrates its beautiful castâs growing character arcs, and experiments in ways that drive ambition rather than insecurity. Like us, it accepts itself as beautiful while understanding the need to break out of its shell. Itâs a wonderful, heart-soothing, chaotic piece of work through-and-through. Without a doubt, itâs going to be a permanent sentimental star in many new Sonic fansâ hearts, the same way the Adventure games grew up with me and my generation.
âI now understand why I am here. I made a promise and Iâm here to keep it. Today, I put my past behind me.â
It's really not that good of a good game. The levels have no cohesion, its glitchy, it looks like ass... but damn was it a joy to play a fun 3D sonic game again.
since the time when sonic first entered the 3D realm, sonic team's primary struggle with designing each game revolves around how to structure each in order to provide a satisfactory amount of content for the player. this was the major motivating design inquiry behind my sonic adventure review that I posted recently -- not required reading to understand the rest of this review but might be handy if you want some context on my interpretation of sonic's primary design philosophy.
in the years since sonic adventure 1 and 2 attempted to pad time with the variety of gameplay styles and reused content, sonic has jumped from concept to concept in such a manner that the franchise's flexibility and wavering identity have become odd staples of the series. some entries pursued hot ideas at the time, such as shadow the hedgehog's ratchet & clank/jak II-inspired shooter mechanics or unleashed's god of war-style action sequences, while others relied strongly on specific unique selling points such as generations' recreations of old levels or forces' character creation function. all of these ultimately exist to add on layers and layers to sonic's "boost gameplay" level design that has been quietly undergirding the series for the past 15 odd years.
in that chronology sonic frontiers is not really out of place. it seizes upon the open world design methodology of its contemporaries in order to bolster its traditional levels. its aesthetic stylings offer another radical change in tone and environment for the franchise, mixing alien architecture and geometric, glitchy robot adversaries with scenic vistas and muted, dour exploration. in many ways, it fits the series' design trajectory perfectly. what makes the game fascinating is how surprisingly well-designed it is without sacrificing or compromising its status as a sonic game. an oddly ambitious title to release when no one was looking, as the previous game in the franchise had launched and flopped right as yakuza/lad was in ascendance in the west, which overtook it as sega's premier gaming franchise (though not quite biggest brand).
sonic frontiers structures its open zones as endless fields of boost level excerpts which often link as intuitive chains. the boost gameplay pattern itself is rather discrete and almost QTE-like in its obstacle structure, with hitting homing attacks at the proper time and performing correct actions such as switching rails or jumping over spikes serving as individual actions performed in between watching sonic roll through loops and zipline around to the next obstacles. in stark contrast with prior games using boost, frontiers chooses to frame the experience of these quick-fire reaction tests in a much more somber fashion. rushing up rails and running up walls center visions of decay with plaintive music behind the preceedings. rain showers occasionally coat sonic's surroundings in a evolving weather system that rotates day and night in a swirl that makes the passage of time feel like a daze. it's an odd juxtaposition of sonic's usual confrontational, energetic get-up borne out through his typical gameplay design against these trappings of loneliness in post-civilization.
surprisingly, this works! the secret behind this is a major shift in how sonic contextualizes these individual gameplay sections scattered throughout the world: absolutely nothing is compulsory. each zone's progression lies in a web of collectables that seem dense at first glance but quickly become second nature. defeating major enemies yields gears that open level portals that grant vault keys via mission completion which unlock emerald vaults, and specific memory items found via "completing" small boost sections strewn across the world open up side character interactions that open up new areas and lead to the final boss of each section. quite a mouthful; combined with the rest of the collectables such as small koko creatures, health and defense pickups, and rings, the design seems to share more in common with donkey kong 64 than breath of the wild.
however, more time spent with the game reveals that obtaining these collectables is not as rigid as it seems at first glance. gears will occasionally drop from random enemies, memory tokens can be found in certain caches hidden around the world, and random breakables with drop any number of other items. in a sense, all the content is optional to some extent. this enhances the forward momentum in an odd way while it makes the pace lackadaisical; simply run into as much new shit as you can until you feel ready to tackle whatever the main quest marker is leading you towards. if you tire of even this, you can choose to fish at one of the spots located in each zone (paid for with yet another currency: purple coins), where no fish can get caught twice and each one showers you with tokens exchangable for virtually any other collectable in the game. compared to its open world ilk, which seek to bury the player in a mound of optional questlines, rigid interactables, and outposts to capture, sonic frontiers eases off and lets the player drive for a while. the content flows so plentifully here that engorging yourself on it all seems grossly decadent. the game even heavily restricts its own fast travel system in an attempt to get the player to just meander. unexpected tact but I fuck with it!
this pacing comes as a cost however, and in this game's case the story takes a notable blow. with sonic breezing through small challenges and exploring semi-aimlessly, each memory-token-brokered cutscene has to take place completely bereft of action given the assumed non-linearity of execution. in each sonic blankly chats with a pal at a standstill remarking on the many off-screen events that occur or working through retreads of each character's "arc" from prior games in a disjointed, abbreviated manner. much of this is peppered with some of the most dreadful MCU-level dreamworks-smirk quips I've ever witnessed in a piece of media. a giant artificial lightning storm arrives at one point after a certain pillar is activated causing tails and sonic to recoil, and sonic without any irony utters "so, that was a thing!". truly a head-spinning display of whedonisms, upstaged only by the late game's unceremonious exposition dumps and heavily-worn "robot learns what human emotion/will/determination" is themes. utterly unsurprising that the lead writer here was plucked from the comic book sphere (archie's old sonic series, obv). this a downside in the absolute sense, but in reality these are not intrusive and the layperson playing this game would certainly not be primarily interested in its story regardless. the actual sonic fans seem to be lapping up the fact the tone is radically opposed to saturday-morning-cartoon vibe of pontac and graff's run on the franchise, so make of that what you will.
the other elements of the game that feel undercooked or particularly uneven feel mostly like results of sonic team's hit-or-miss variety of ideas and poor execution. the combat may be the most egregious of these: much like the open world, it initially seems like the team struck gold simply by throwing the prior boost gameplay elements into these fights. simply serve up these fundamentals with about fifteen different taped-on moves (that each "extend combos" ie play pace-breaking animations while having identical end results) and the system should be fine, right? other than the laughable "variety" of moves, with virtually all enemies being utterly decimated by one of sonic's two projectile moves rendering the rest pointless, each enemy has a heavily telegraphed counterstrategy that makes repeat fights undesirable. these tend to make each fight shockingly quick in the most free cases or unreasonably tedious when the fight requires sitting through repeated platforming challenges. specific ones like squid and caterpillar truly strain the pace with their overly long traversal phases required to simply access the privilege to fight them; caterpillar makes this even worse with laser beams that have a buggy habit of meaty-ing the player upon get-up and effectively OHKOing them. this didn't have to be the case; fortress has its own rail-grinding section and yet conjures the thrill dogfighting with its fast pace and multiple unique quick rail-switches required to approach its head. most regular fights (and some other major fights like certain towers) becomes slogs of repeatedly "cyloop"-ing each enemy's shield and then peppering them with projectiles. of special note in this section is the parry, which merely has to be held to successfully dispel the attack without any timing component. this appears like some last-minute mechanical change to be honest (there's a series of escalating challenges that feature parrying faster and faster projectiles... which makes no sense without the timing component), and by proxy this trivializes every ninja-type encounter. too many instances of these combat mechanics seeming cobbled together in a way that begs the question of why they were included at all.
combat is likely the worst of frontiers' sins when you break it down (I'm saying this to make myself feel better about that prior monster paragraph), with the other point of contention being the boost stages proper. these draw from generations' asset pool and feel somewhat awkward on first pass thanks to the general handling evidently being tuned for free-roam gameplay. however, these grew on me quickly. the vast majority of these particular boost stages rank among sonic's best, with a much better emphasis on verticality, alternate paths, and interesting structures and obstacles compared to sonic's other similar games that I've experienced. certain stages recreate famous SA2 adventure stages such as city escape and metal harbor, and playing these back to back with the others showcases just how bare the boost gameplay skeleton is. SA-era sonic was much richer in terms of its environmental variety in exchange for consistency in terms of mechanics, whereas boost reuses the same toolkit frequently with the reassurance that the mechanics will be predictable. the combination of these here as well as the surprising amount of juice squeezed from the now-old boost fruit make this feel rather robust in terms of its levels. it helps that each one is only about a minute and a half to three minutes -- the ideal sonic level length.
thankfully you can modulate how much you want to experience any of these facets with the fishing minigame, and with that sonic frontiers reorients the focus back to simply experiencing the vastness of each zone and the intermingling of rails, spring pads, and boost pads in each. a particularly neat trick it pulls in this regard occurs in the second island, where an initally large desert plateau gives way to a much larger web of tunnels and valleys once one climbs to the ridge cutting them off from the rest of the island. unfortunately the third island focuses too heavily on island-hopping that requires knowing specific entrances and exits; this is annoyingly infeasible without memorization thanks to the game's poor draw distance. it is also during this section that the amount of 2D boost sections in the overworld increases, which have the unfortunate effect of both struggling to work if their camera trigger is not activated as well as locking the player in to surmounting the obstacles once triggered even if the reward had already been received. the final major area (not as big as any of the others but still plenty large) splits the difference, with the most annoying enemies in the game and more forced 2D but a nice big contiguous hunk of land to traverse. at the very least each island has some dazzling structure that can be triumphantly scaled from multiple directions. this never ceased to excite me even when other environmental elements blended together in my brain.
in some ways, the lack of compulsory objectives in sonic frontiers (outside of completing each area-end boss; these use the same combat mechanics as the other sections but you get to play as super sonic so they're passable) makes it feel the perfection of sonic as the lightning-fast 3D playground series. by padding out the game with the boost sections themselves, sonic team has managed to make a seamless entry that still packs a significant amount of content; I ran a little over 20 hours without doing a decent amount of levels or uncovering each part of the map. in that way it seems like less of an "open world" game and more like an askew modern take on the collectathon. much like how sonic's older games featured multiple different level routes to cater to each player's needs, so too does frontiers allow a wide array of different experiences, event orders, and paths through its boundless exploration. I'm equally curious to see if sonic team attempts to expand on these particular ideas and aghast at the idea of them doing the same thing twice. I think there's enough here to overhaul or improve that proves this particular field is still very fertile.
even beyond what I've discussed there's more little goodies and surprises to find (pinball: meh, shmup sections: honestly pretty tight??). true final boss also definitely delivered on the crazy overwrought schmaltz and surprising mechanics. definitely worth playing through the game on hard just for that even though it made the combat 2% more tedious and isn't even necessary since you can switch it in the menu. platinum looks pretty doable too... I still have trophy hunter brainrot even though I've barely tried for completion shit since I started using this site. but maybe someday...
in the years since sonic adventure 1 and 2 attempted to pad time with the variety of gameplay styles and reused content, sonic has jumped from concept to concept in such a manner that the franchise's flexibility and wavering identity have become odd staples of the series. some entries pursued hot ideas at the time, such as shadow the hedgehog's ratchet & clank/jak II-inspired shooter mechanics or unleashed's god of war-style action sequences, while others relied strongly on specific unique selling points such as generations' recreations of old levels or forces' character creation function. all of these ultimately exist to add on layers and layers to sonic's "boost gameplay" level design that has been quietly undergirding the series for the past 15 odd years.
in that chronology sonic frontiers is not really out of place. it seizes upon the open world design methodology of its contemporaries in order to bolster its traditional levels. its aesthetic stylings offer another radical change in tone and environment for the franchise, mixing alien architecture and geometric, glitchy robot adversaries with scenic vistas and muted, dour exploration. in many ways, it fits the series' design trajectory perfectly. what makes the game fascinating is how surprisingly well-designed it is without sacrificing or compromising its status as a sonic game. an oddly ambitious title to release when no one was looking, as the previous game in the franchise had launched and flopped right as yakuza/lad was in ascendance in the west, which overtook it as sega's premier gaming franchise (though not quite biggest brand).
sonic frontiers structures its open zones as endless fields of boost level excerpts which often link as intuitive chains. the boost gameplay pattern itself is rather discrete and almost QTE-like in its obstacle structure, with hitting homing attacks at the proper time and performing correct actions such as switching rails or jumping over spikes serving as individual actions performed in between watching sonic roll through loops and zipline around to the next obstacles. in stark contrast with prior games using boost, frontiers chooses to frame the experience of these quick-fire reaction tests in a much more somber fashion. rushing up rails and running up walls center visions of decay with plaintive music behind the preceedings. rain showers occasionally coat sonic's surroundings in a evolving weather system that rotates day and night in a swirl that makes the passage of time feel like a daze. it's an odd juxtaposition of sonic's usual confrontational, energetic get-up borne out through his typical gameplay design against these trappings of loneliness in post-civilization.
surprisingly, this works! the secret behind this is a major shift in how sonic contextualizes these individual gameplay sections scattered throughout the world: absolutely nothing is compulsory. each zone's progression lies in a web of collectables that seem dense at first glance but quickly become second nature. defeating major enemies yields gears that open level portals that grant vault keys via mission completion which unlock emerald vaults, and specific memory items found via "completing" small boost sections strewn across the world open up side character interactions that open up new areas and lead to the final boss of each section. quite a mouthful; combined with the rest of the collectables such as small koko creatures, health and defense pickups, and rings, the design seems to share more in common with donkey kong 64 than breath of the wild.
however, more time spent with the game reveals that obtaining these collectables is not as rigid as it seems at first glance. gears will occasionally drop from random enemies, memory tokens can be found in certain caches hidden around the world, and random breakables with drop any number of other items. in a sense, all the content is optional to some extent. this enhances the forward momentum in an odd way while it makes the pace lackadaisical; simply run into as much new shit as you can until you feel ready to tackle whatever the main quest marker is leading you towards. if you tire of even this, you can choose to fish at one of the spots located in each zone (paid for with yet another currency: purple coins), where no fish can get caught twice and each one showers you with tokens exchangable for virtually any other collectable in the game. compared to its open world ilk, which seek to bury the player in a mound of optional questlines, rigid interactables, and outposts to capture, sonic frontiers eases off and lets the player drive for a while. the content flows so plentifully here that engorging yourself on it all seems grossly decadent. the game even heavily restricts its own fast travel system in an attempt to get the player to just meander. unexpected tact but I fuck with it!
this pacing comes as a cost however, and in this game's case the story takes a notable blow. with sonic breezing through small challenges and exploring semi-aimlessly, each memory-token-brokered cutscene has to take place completely bereft of action given the assumed non-linearity of execution. in each sonic blankly chats with a pal at a standstill remarking on the many off-screen events that occur or working through retreads of each character's "arc" from prior games in a disjointed, abbreviated manner. much of this is peppered with some of the most dreadful MCU-level dreamworks-smirk quips I've ever witnessed in a piece of media. a giant artificial lightning storm arrives at one point after a certain pillar is activated causing tails and sonic to recoil, and sonic without any irony utters "so, that was a thing!". truly a head-spinning display of whedonisms, upstaged only by the late game's unceremonious exposition dumps and heavily-worn "robot learns what human emotion/will/determination" is themes. utterly unsurprising that the lead writer here was plucked from the comic book sphere (archie's old sonic series, obv). this a downside in the absolute sense, but in reality these are not intrusive and the layperson playing this game would certainly not be primarily interested in its story regardless. the actual sonic fans seem to be lapping up the fact the tone is radically opposed to saturday-morning-cartoon vibe of pontac and graff's run on the franchise, so make of that what you will.
the other elements of the game that feel undercooked or particularly uneven feel mostly like results of sonic team's hit-or-miss variety of ideas and poor execution. the combat may be the most egregious of these: much like the open world, it initially seems like the team struck gold simply by throwing the prior boost gameplay elements into these fights. simply serve up these fundamentals with about fifteen different taped-on moves (that each "extend combos" ie play pace-breaking animations while having identical end results) and the system should be fine, right? other than the laughable "variety" of moves, with virtually all enemies being utterly decimated by one of sonic's two projectile moves rendering the rest pointless, each enemy has a heavily telegraphed counterstrategy that makes repeat fights undesirable. these tend to make each fight shockingly quick in the most free cases or unreasonably tedious when the fight requires sitting through repeated platforming challenges. specific ones like squid and caterpillar truly strain the pace with their overly long traversal phases required to simply access the privilege to fight them; caterpillar makes this even worse with laser beams that have a buggy habit of meaty-ing the player upon get-up and effectively OHKOing them. this didn't have to be the case; fortress has its own rail-grinding section and yet conjures the thrill dogfighting with its fast pace and multiple unique quick rail-switches required to approach its head. most regular fights (and some other major fights like certain towers) becomes slogs of repeatedly "cyloop"-ing each enemy's shield and then peppering them with projectiles. of special note in this section is the parry, which merely has to be held to successfully dispel the attack without any timing component. this appears like some last-minute mechanical change to be honest (there's a series of escalating challenges that feature parrying faster and faster projectiles... which makes no sense without the timing component), and by proxy this trivializes every ninja-type encounter. too many instances of these combat mechanics seeming cobbled together in a way that begs the question of why they were included at all.
combat is likely the worst of frontiers' sins when you break it down (I'm saying this to make myself feel better about that prior monster paragraph), with the other point of contention being the boost stages proper. these draw from generations' asset pool and feel somewhat awkward on first pass thanks to the general handling evidently being tuned for free-roam gameplay. however, these grew on me quickly. the vast majority of these particular boost stages rank among sonic's best, with a much better emphasis on verticality, alternate paths, and interesting structures and obstacles compared to sonic's other similar games that I've experienced. certain stages recreate famous SA2 adventure stages such as city escape and metal harbor, and playing these back to back with the others showcases just how bare the boost gameplay skeleton is. SA-era sonic was much richer in terms of its environmental variety in exchange for consistency in terms of mechanics, whereas boost reuses the same toolkit frequently with the reassurance that the mechanics will be predictable. the combination of these here as well as the surprising amount of juice squeezed from the now-old boost fruit make this feel rather robust in terms of its levels. it helps that each one is only about a minute and a half to three minutes -- the ideal sonic level length.
thankfully you can modulate how much you want to experience any of these facets with the fishing minigame, and with that sonic frontiers reorients the focus back to simply experiencing the vastness of each zone and the intermingling of rails, spring pads, and boost pads in each. a particularly neat trick it pulls in this regard occurs in the second island, where an initally large desert plateau gives way to a much larger web of tunnels and valleys once one climbs to the ridge cutting them off from the rest of the island. unfortunately the third island focuses too heavily on island-hopping that requires knowing specific entrances and exits; this is annoyingly infeasible without memorization thanks to the game's poor draw distance. it is also during this section that the amount of 2D boost sections in the overworld increases, which have the unfortunate effect of both struggling to work if their camera trigger is not activated as well as locking the player in to surmounting the obstacles once triggered even if the reward had already been received. the final major area (not as big as any of the others but still plenty large) splits the difference, with the most annoying enemies in the game and more forced 2D but a nice big contiguous hunk of land to traverse. at the very least each island has some dazzling structure that can be triumphantly scaled from multiple directions. this never ceased to excite me even when other environmental elements blended together in my brain.
in some ways, the lack of compulsory objectives in sonic frontiers (outside of completing each area-end boss; these use the same combat mechanics as the other sections but you get to play as super sonic so they're passable) makes it feel the perfection of sonic as the lightning-fast 3D playground series. by padding out the game with the boost sections themselves, sonic team has managed to make a seamless entry that still packs a significant amount of content; I ran a little over 20 hours without doing a decent amount of levels or uncovering each part of the map. in that way it seems like less of an "open world" game and more like an askew modern take on the collectathon. much like how sonic's older games featured multiple different level routes to cater to each player's needs, so too does frontiers allow a wide array of different experiences, event orders, and paths through its boundless exploration. I'm equally curious to see if sonic team attempts to expand on these particular ideas and aghast at the idea of them doing the same thing twice. I think there's enough here to overhaul or improve that proves this particular field is still very fertile.
even beyond what I've discussed there's more little goodies and surprises to find (pinball: meh, shmup sections: honestly pretty tight??). true final boss also definitely delivered on the crazy overwrought schmaltz and surprising mechanics. definitely worth playing through the game on hard just for that even though it made the combat 2% more tedious and isn't even necessary since you can switch it in the menu. platinum looks pretty doable too... I still have trophy hunter brainrot even though I've barely tried for completion shit since I started using this site. but maybe someday...
Sonic Frontiers is kind of a miracle. I hesitate to call it good but it's oddly compelling. It's a mishmash of competing ideas and new concepts bolted onto existing gameplay elements, and yet somehow it works. It borrows heavily from other games, often shamelessly, but never strays too far away from what makes Sonic tick. It's got that familiar Sonic Team jank but is also the most polished game they've probably ever made.
In short...yeah, it's alright.
I'll chalk that up to a win for a developer that's truly struggled to find an identity for this franchise going back over 15 years now. I don't know if Frontiers will be that going forward, but there was at least an attempt here to right past wrongs and fully commit to this change in direction until it was truly ready to be released. They weren't lying when they said they would take their time to ensure better quality. There's a lot I'll take issue with as this review goes on but I'll take no umbrage with their execution of what they were going for here.
So what was Sonic Team going for here? Well, an "open zone" game as they'd call it, which is really saying it's a series of segmented open-world areas for you to run around in. And truthfully, they nailed this part of the game in a way I was not expecting. They've created a huge playground for Sonic to have fun in, filled with obstacles, platforming, and puzzles that smartly funnel you from one area to the next as you explore the islands. I wish it was all a little more natural looking and built into the geography instead of appearing like random game elements plopped down all over a Windows XP landscape, but they do absolutely achieve their job of keeping you busy and always giving you something rewarding for interacting with them. It's so basic but it's also why I easily vibe with these types of games. One can't help but wonder how much higher they could have reached with this concept if they were willing to move off established conventions and opt for a more momentum-based system for players to experiment with, but I digress.
Unfortunately, now and then you'll need to pop into Cyber Space to grab a particular collectible and it's here where the experience gets dragged down a notch. The Cyber Space levels are entirely in the style of past Sonic games like Unleashed or Forces and it's very clear Sonic Team didn't have enough confidence in their new vision so they threw these levels in for some misguided sense of variety. Worst of all, these stages reuse both visual designs AND stage designs from past games, cut into smaller chunks, so if you've already played them this will just feel like a bore. I won't mince words: this is incredibly lazy and if they couldn't be bothered to design entirely new levels for this part of the game it should have never been included. I never looked forward to having to grind these levels for the necessary vault keys and quite frankly it's a good showcase for how dated that style of Sonic gameplay has become.
One other aspect of Frontiers' gameplay that also deserves criticism is its upgrade system. I don't mind having to unlock new moves for combat but there's no reason why a game like this requires a system that forces me to increase Sonic's attack, defense, or speed (or the number of rings for that matter, an entirely useless upgrade). It's like they looked at other modern games and said "We need to do this too" without really considering why those systems can often be a detriment to those games as well. If you have to make your character move and feel worse to justify later upgrades and "fix" the problem you created, that's bad game design in my book. And yes, this problem does get mitigated about halfway through the game when you've done enough of the upgrades to where it stops mattering, but that doesn't erase the problems I had with it in the early game, and the best example I can give is the encounter with the Squid enemy on the first island.
The Squid requires you to run along a path until you're in range to attack it, at which point it'll switch to a combat field to allow further damage. The problem is that early in the game, your speed is slow, so it can take minutes for you to catch up before you're in attack range, and that's not even counting the section where it's entirely automated and you simply can't catch it during this time. Once you do achieve this, you find your attack is so low that you simply cannot do enough damage to dispose of it in a timely fashion, forcing you to repeat the chase section. You'll probably have to do this three or four times before the Squid finally goes down. It's unnecessarily tedious and frustrating when all I really want to do is be tested on how well I've mastered the combat. It's a small point in a larger game but this sort of thing is a pet peeve of mine and I think it illustrates the larger point of how unnecessary these systems are. They merely exist to give you the illusion of progression but it's not really required as the sense of progression you get from working through the islands is where the game's real satisfaction comes from.
Moving back to another of the game's strong points, let's discuss the story and characters because at long last Sonic Team has woken up and realized that Pontac and Graff were hacks who were strangling the series with their take on its tone and characterization, and have brought in Ian Flynn to rectify the problem. And boy does he, as not only do the main cast of characters finally get some nuance to them but the story itself is allowed to actually connect back to older games. This gives the Starfall Islands of Sonic Frontiers some immediate credibility as a setting in this universe and helps to bridge the series back to a time when you could get invested in a Sonic game's story because the characters were allowed to grow with it. What a novel concept.
There's so much to like here. I was genuinely worried that the side characters would exist as objects for Sonic to rescue and not have much interaction outside of that, but even in their transient state, they're still able to influence events and have meaningful conversations with Sonic, who himself has returned to a genuinely likable character and not spouting the most obnoxious one-liners imaginable every five seconds. Hell, the entire sidestory with Tails felt like Flynn deliberately calling out how shitty the past 10 years of characterization have been for Sonic's fox friend. It was incredibly refreshing to see the series acknowledge its faults and commit to doing better. If there's one gripe in this department, it's that most of Eggman's motivations were put inside audio logs that you need to do the fishing minigame to acquire. Given Eggman's relationship with the new character of Sage is incredibly vital to the proceedings, I wish this stuff would have been more front and center, but hey, at least the fishing was fun.
I touched a little bit on the game's visuals but I'd like to expand a bit more because I do think how this game looks is a bit on the disappointing side. Not so much in terms of fidelity or framerate; Sonic Team did a surprisingly good job here and overall Frontiers ran extremely well on my PS5, at least in performance mode. This is more to do with the game's visual identity, or perhaps the lack thereof. Despite having five islands, Frontiers only has three level themes: grass and forest, desert, and volcano. Island 4 and 5 looks practically identical to the first one, and the same style of ruins persist across the entire game. From a narrative standpoint, this makes sense; it was one ancient civilization across the whole island chain, but it does give the feeling of sameness and there's an overall lack of variety to the locales here. The realistically rendered worlds also contrast greatly with the cartoonish characters who inhabit them, and I would have much preferred the game to go in a more stylized direction consistent with past Sonic games. This isn't a major point; just a preference of mine.
Much like the visuals, the music can also be a little jarring and inconsistent at times, but this is more toward the good end of that spectrum. You'll go from the quiet and laid-back tracks that inhabit the open world (some of which feel very reminiscent of Sonic 2006), while enemy encounters, cyberspace levels, and boss battles will hit you with more mechanical-inspired themes and vocal tracks that are more akin to the Adventure era. There's a lot of variety here, and it's pretty much all good. One of the safest bets you can make is that a Sonic game will have good music and you will not be shocked to find that Frontiers continues that trend.
If you're a hardcore Sonic fan you'll find a lot to like in this game, but if you're someone who was hoping Sonic Team would be able to elevate this franchise to greater heights, you're not going to find it here. Frontiers pulls the franchise back to the level of "acceptable" and for some that may be enough, but for me, I'm still yearning for something that can give me the highs of Sonic Adventure 2 again. There are moments of Sonic Frontiers that invoke the spirit and energy of that time (especially those boss battles), but there are also moments where you realize this is a game in 2022 and it can encapsulate the worst elements of that. The result is an experience that, again...is fine. Just fine.
Perhaps I should be happy with that.
In short...yeah, it's alright.
I'll chalk that up to a win for a developer that's truly struggled to find an identity for this franchise going back over 15 years now. I don't know if Frontiers will be that going forward, but there was at least an attempt here to right past wrongs and fully commit to this change in direction until it was truly ready to be released. They weren't lying when they said they would take their time to ensure better quality. There's a lot I'll take issue with as this review goes on but I'll take no umbrage with their execution of what they were going for here.
So what was Sonic Team going for here? Well, an "open zone" game as they'd call it, which is really saying it's a series of segmented open-world areas for you to run around in. And truthfully, they nailed this part of the game in a way I was not expecting. They've created a huge playground for Sonic to have fun in, filled with obstacles, platforming, and puzzles that smartly funnel you from one area to the next as you explore the islands. I wish it was all a little more natural looking and built into the geography instead of appearing like random game elements plopped down all over a Windows XP landscape, but they do absolutely achieve their job of keeping you busy and always giving you something rewarding for interacting with them. It's so basic but it's also why I easily vibe with these types of games. One can't help but wonder how much higher they could have reached with this concept if they were willing to move off established conventions and opt for a more momentum-based system for players to experiment with, but I digress.
Unfortunately, now and then you'll need to pop into Cyber Space to grab a particular collectible and it's here where the experience gets dragged down a notch. The Cyber Space levels are entirely in the style of past Sonic games like Unleashed or Forces and it's very clear Sonic Team didn't have enough confidence in their new vision so they threw these levels in for some misguided sense of variety. Worst of all, these stages reuse both visual designs AND stage designs from past games, cut into smaller chunks, so if you've already played them this will just feel like a bore. I won't mince words: this is incredibly lazy and if they couldn't be bothered to design entirely new levels for this part of the game it should have never been included. I never looked forward to having to grind these levels for the necessary vault keys and quite frankly it's a good showcase for how dated that style of Sonic gameplay has become.
One other aspect of Frontiers' gameplay that also deserves criticism is its upgrade system. I don't mind having to unlock new moves for combat but there's no reason why a game like this requires a system that forces me to increase Sonic's attack, defense, or speed (or the number of rings for that matter, an entirely useless upgrade). It's like they looked at other modern games and said "We need to do this too" without really considering why those systems can often be a detriment to those games as well. If you have to make your character move and feel worse to justify later upgrades and "fix" the problem you created, that's bad game design in my book. And yes, this problem does get mitigated about halfway through the game when you've done enough of the upgrades to where it stops mattering, but that doesn't erase the problems I had with it in the early game, and the best example I can give is the encounter with the Squid enemy on the first island.
The Squid requires you to run along a path until you're in range to attack it, at which point it'll switch to a combat field to allow further damage. The problem is that early in the game, your speed is slow, so it can take minutes for you to catch up before you're in attack range, and that's not even counting the section where it's entirely automated and you simply can't catch it during this time. Once you do achieve this, you find your attack is so low that you simply cannot do enough damage to dispose of it in a timely fashion, forcing you to repeat the chase section. You'll probably have to do this three or four times before the Squid finally goes down. It's unnecessarily tedious and frustrating when all I really want to do is be tested on how well I've mastered the combat. It's a small point in a larger game but this sort of thing is a pet peeve of mine and I think it illustrates the larger point of how unnecessary these systems are. They merely exist to give you the illusion of progression but it's not really required as the sense of progression you get from working through the islands is where the game's real satisfaction comes from.
Moving back to another of the game's strong points, let's discuss the story and characters because at long last Sonic Team has woken up and realized that Pontac and Graff were hacks who were strangling the series with their take on its tone and characterization, and have brought in Ian Flynn to rectify the problem. And boy does he, as not only do the main cast of characters finally get some nuance to them but the story itself is allowed to actually connect back to older games. This gives the Starfall Islands of Sonic Frontiers some immediate credibility as a setting in this universe and helps to bridge the series back to a time when you could get invested in a Sonic game's story because the characters were allowed to grow with it. What a novel concept.
There's so much to like here. I was genuinely worried that the side characters would exist as objects for Sonic to rescue and not have much interaction outside of that, but even in their transient state, they're still able to influence events and have meaningful conversations with Sonic, who himself has returned to a genuinely likable character and not spouting the most obnoxious one-liners imaginable every five seconds. Hell, the entire sidestory with Tails felt like Flynn deliberately calling out how shitty the past 10 years of characterization have been for Sonic's fox friend. It was incredibly refreshing to see the series acknowledge its faults and commit to doing better. If there's one gripe in this department, it's that most of Eggman's motivations were put inside audio logs that you need to do the fishing minigame to acquire. Given Eggman's relationship with the new character of Sage is incredibly vital to the proceedings, I wish this stuff would have been more front and center, but hey, at least the fishing was fun.
I touched a little bit on the game's visuals but I'd like to expand a bit more because I do think how this game looks is a bit on the disappointing side. Not so much in terms of fidelity or framerate; Sonic Team did a surprisingly good job here and overall Frontiers ran extremely well on my PS5, at least in performance mode. This is more to do with the game's visual identity, or perhaps the lack thereof. Despite having five islands, Frontiers only has three level themes: grass and forest, desert, and volcano. Island 4 and 5 looks practically identical to the first one, and the same style of ruins persist across the entire game. From a narrative standpoint, this makes sense; it was one ancient civilization across the whole island chain, but it does give the feeling of sameness and there's an overall lack of variety to the locales here. The realistically rendered worlds also contrast greatly with the cartoonish characters who inhabit them, and I would have much preferred the game to go in a more stylized direction consistent with past Sonic games. This isn't a major point; just a preference of mine.
Much like the visuals, the music can also be a little jarring and inconsistent at times, but this is more toward the good end of that spectrum. You'll go from the quiet and laid-back tracks that inhabit the open world (some of which feel very reminiscent of Sonic 2006), while enemy encounters, cyberspace levels, and boss battles will hit you with more mechanical-inspired themes and vocal tracks that are more akin to the Adventure era. There's a lot of variety here, and it's pretty much all good. One of the safest bets you can make is that a Sonic game will have good music and you will not be shocked to find that Frontiers continues that trend.
If you're a hardcore Sonic fan you'll find a lot to like in this game, but if you're someone who was hoping Sonic Team would be able to elevate this franchise to greater heights, you're not going to find it here. Frontiers pulls the franchise back to the level of "acceptable" and for some that may be enough, but for me, I'm still yearning for something that can give me the highs of Sonic Adventure 2 again. There are moments of Sonic Frontiers that invoke the spirit and energy of that time (especially those boss battles), but there are also moments where you realize this is a game in 2022 and it can encapsulate the worst elements of that. The result is an experience that, again...is fine. Just fine.
Perhaps I should be happy with that.
Sonic Frontiers Ă© o mais novo jogo do Sonic, porĂ©m, ele nĂŁo Ă© sĂł mais um jogo qualquer da franquia, Ă© a nova direção da sĂ©rie, sendo tĂŁo diferente quanto Adventure e Unleashed, mas serĂĄ que Sonic Frontiers Ă© um bom jogo mesmo com algumas polĂȘmicas ? A resposta Ă© sim, ele Ă© um Ăłtimo jogo !
O jogo foi anunciado na Sonic Central de Maio de 2021 e desde aquele dia, eu fiquei bastante hypado, mas ao mesmo tempo com medo de ser um "Sonic Forces 2", o que eu estou dizendo com isso Ă© que eu nĂŁo queria que fosse sĂł um jogo Boost mediano e sim uma revolução dentro da franquia, muito tempo se passou e em junho de 2022 finalmente tivemos uma gameplay, postada no canal da IGN e isso gerou uma baita polĂȘmica na Ă©poca, eu particularmente tinha gostado bastante do jogo mesmo com aqueles vĂdeos ruins da IGN, mas a internet ficou bastante decepcionada por causa que alĂ©m da IGN jogar que nem uma lesma fazendo natação no Sesc, o jogo estava "vazio" e os mundos estavam bem realistas ao estilo Sonic na Unreal Engine, o que estranhou quase todo mundo, depois disso tudo, o jogo foi mais bem recebido pelos fĂŁs, eu sempre estive bastante otimista com esse jogo e nĂŁo fiquei decepcionado.
Agora falando do jogo mesmo, os gråficos são bastante bonitos, finalmente temos um jogo mais bonito que o Unleashed ? Eu diria que sim, o sistema de dia e noite ficou muito bonito, as Open Zones possuem cenårios realistas mas ficaram muito bonitos, mesmo sendo bem diferente dos jogos do Sonic, eu joguei pelo Nintendo Switch e até no Switch o jogo estå bastante agradåvel, não tenho nada a reclamar da versão do Switch, no geral é com certeza bem mais caprichado do que o Forces !
A histĂłria Ă© outro ponto alto, fazia muito tempo que Sonic nĂŁo tinha histĂłrias tĂŁo interessantes como a sĂ©rie Adventure e Unleashed, Sonic Frontiers provavelmente tem a melhor histĂłria da sĂ©rie, eu adorei o fato deles lembrarem personagens e eventos do passado, como os Black Arms do jogo do Shadow, a batalha do Eggman e Tails na Station Square e atĂ© mesmo aquela vergonha do Chaos 0 e Tails no Forces... Os amigos do Sonic como Tails, Knuckles e Amy estĂŁo nesse jogo, eles estĂŁo presos no Cyberspace e nĂŁo podem interagir com o Sonic fisicamente, assim o Sonic precisa coletar os itens mnemĂŽnicos, eles sĂŁo necessĂĄrios para o decorrer da histĂłria, a Sage Ă© a nova personagem de destaque desse jogo, no começo ela aparentemente Ă© uma vilĂŁ mas depois ela muda com o passar da aventura, gostei bastante dela, alĂ©m disso, o jogo apresenta uma nova raça chamada Os Antigos (ou The Ancients), eles sĂŁo seres misteriosos que envolvem os Kocos e que possuem um grande papel na histĂłria do jogo contada em Flashbacks, em questĂŁo de aparĂȘncia lembram bastante o Chaos 0, jĂĄ existem teorias que ele Ă© um dos Antigos tambĂ©m, era esse tipo de coisa que faltava no Sonic, porque isso aumenta o universo da sĂ©rie e fica muito mais interessante, o Ian Flynn definitivamente fez um Ăłtimo trabalho e espero que ele continue a participar dos jogos !
Os mundos desse jogo se chamam Open Zones, eles as åreas grandes do jogo, existem 5 ilhas que compÔem o arquipélago chamado Starfall Islands:
1- Kronos Island: a primeira ilha do jogo, Ă© um lugar que possui florestas e etc, o TitĂŁ da ilha Ă© o Giganto.
2- Ares Island: a segunda ilha do jogo, basicamente Ă© um deserto gigante, o TitĂŁ da ilha Ă© o Wyvern.
3- Chaos Island: a terceira ilha do jogo, Ă© um local que possui um vulcĂŁo e lava, o TitĂŁ da ilha Ă© o Knight.
4- Rhea Island: a quarta ilha do jogo, é bastante parecida com Kronos Island com a presença de torres, essa ilha não possui um Titã.
5- Ouranos Island: a quinta e Ășltima ilha do jogo, bastante parecida com Kronos Island tambĂ©m, o TitĂŁ da ilha Ă© o Supreme.
No geral, Ă© bastante divertido explorar essas ilhas, o mapa começa bem limitado, mas cada vez que vocĂȘ concluĂ um Puzzle, uma parte do mapa Ă© liberado, quando todos os Puzzles resolvidos, alĂ©m do mapa completado, vocĂȘ pode usar o Fast Travel (apesar de que isso nĂŁo vai ser Ăștil porque vocĂȘ jĂĄ fez tudo nele), as ilhas nĂŁo sĂŁo tĂŁo grandes ao ponto de encher o saco, na verdade se comparar com outros jogos de mundo aberto, sĂŁo bem pequenas, nĂŁo tenho uma ilha favorita mas a Rhea Island infelizmente Ă© a mais fraca, jĂĄ que o Ășnico objetivo Ă© ir atĂ© as torres, ela nĂŁo tem exploração.
O Sonic possui um sistema de combate, além dos movimentos clåssicos dele como Homing Attack, agora o Sonic tem uma Skill Tree, ele pode lançar vårios socos, chutes, tornados, raios e etc ! Os golpes são bastante poderosos e apelÔes, eles facilitam bastante as coisas.
Nas Open Zones, temos tambĂ©m os Kocos AnciĂŁo e o Eremita, eles aumentam os atributos do Sonic, o Koco AnciĂŁo pode aumentar a velocidade e a quantidade de anĂ©is se vocĂȘ levar uma certa quantidade de Kocos e o Eremita pode aumentar a força e a defesa, alĂ©m de conseguir podem alterar a distribuição de nĂveis de anĂ©is e velocidade, eles sĂŁo bem Ășteis pois sĂŁo a Ășnica maneira de melhorar o Sonic.
Existe uma ĂĄrea isolada do resto do jogo que o Big the Cat retorna, sim, o Big the Cat em um jogo principal da sĂ©rie depois de tanto tempo ausente, a mecĂąnica de pesca estĂĄ de volta, basta coletar as moedas roxas que estĂŁo espalhadas nas Open Zones e aĂ vocĂȘ poderĂĄ pescar, ela estĂĄ BEM melhor e mais simplificada tambĂ©m, o Sonic pode pescar vĂĄrias coisas, como peixes e outros animais do mar, alĂ©m de tickets para vocĂȘ pescar sem gastar moedas roxas, itens bastante especĂficos como alguns inimigos clĂĄssicos e a placa do final de fase dos jogos clĂĄssicos, mas os principais itens sĂŁo os Egg Memo, sĂŁo ĂĄudios do Dr. Eggman que ajudam aumentar a lore do jogo, fazem referĂȘncias aos jogos passados tambĂ©m.
Agora que jĂĄ falei brevemente das Opens Zones, temos as fases de Cyberspace, elas sĂŁo boas... Mas podiam ser um pouquinho mais criativas, principalmente nos temas, existem sĂł 4, Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary e Cidade, isso fica bastante repetitivo, as fases em si na grande maioria sĂŁo fases recicladas do Sonic Adventure 2, Unleashed e Generations, sĂŁo bem divertidas porque sĂŁo as fases dos jogos anteriores, o Level Design Ă© idĂȘntico, o que muda sĂŁo apenas os grĂĄficos, meu problema com essas fases Ă© que a SEGA nĂŁo falou (e nem fala) em nenhum momento que as fases sĂŁo uma homenagem aos jogos antigos e blĂĄ blĂĄ blĂĄ, parece que sĂł pegaram pra agilizar o desenvolvimento do jogo, foram os fĂŁs que perceberam essa maracutaia, nĂŁo estou reclamando do fato de serem recicladas mas sim da SEGA falar como se todas as fases fossem novas.
Os chefes desse jogo sĂŁo outro ponto alto, com certeza sĂŁo os melhores chefes da franquia, os TitĂŁs estĂŁo em todas as ilhas (com excessĂŁo da Rhea Island), nessas batalhas usamos o Super Sonic para lutar com eles ! Isso dĂĄ uma imersĂŁo muito Ă©pica, os TitĂŁs sĂŁo muito legais, os meus chefes favoritos sĂŁo o Giganto, Supreme e o Chefe Final, falando dele, ele sĂł estĂĄ disponĂvel se vocĂȘ jogar na dificuldade DifĂcil, a gameplay muda bastante com ele, meu Ășnico problema com ele Ă© o design que nĂŁo vou falar por motivos de Spoilers mas Ă© bem decepcionante.
Para terminar, a trilha sonora, ela Ă© excelente como na grande maioria das vezes, as mĂșsicas cantadas sĂŁo as melhores mĂșsicas do jogo e algumas das melhores da franquia, temos em torno de 6 temas principais ! NĂŁo vou mencionar as minhas favoritas porque eu jĂĄ falei disso na minha lista das trilhas sonoras favoritas, hoje em dia nĂŁo mudou tanta coisa desde o dia que postei a lista.
Sonic Frontiers é um excelente jogo e virou o meu Sonic favorito de todos, eu não sei explicar, gostei de tudo nele, estou bem satisfeito com esse jogo, não estou decepcionado de jeito nenhum, na verdade superou minhas expectativas, mas ainda assim felizmente foi anunciado que o jogo vai receber 3 Updates de graça ! O primeiro deles lançou hoje mesmo (22 de março) e tem bastante coisa, mas o verdadeiro Update serå o 3, que vamos jogar com outros personagens ! Enfim, nós nos vemos na próxima Review e FALOUUUUUUUUU !
O jogo foi anunciado na Sonic Central de Maio de 2021 e desde aquele dia, eu fiquei bastante hypado, mas ao mesmo tempo com medo de ser um "Sonic Forces 2", o que eu estou dizendo com isso Ă© que eu nĂŁo queria que fosse sĂł um jogo Boost mediano e sim uma revolução dentro da franquia, muito tempo se passou e em junho de 2022 finalmente tivemos uma gameplay, postada no canal da IGN e isso gerou uma baita polĂȘmica na Ă©poca, eu particularmente tinha gostado bastante do jogo mesmo com aqueles vĂdeos ruins da IGN, mas a internet ficou bastante decepcionada por causa que alĂ©m da IGN jogar que nem uma lesma fazendo natação no Sesc, o jogo estava "vazio" e os mundos estavam bem realistas ao estilo Sonic na Unreal Engine, o que estranhou quase todo mundo, depois disso tudo, o jogo foi mais bem recebido pelos fĂŁs, eu sempre estive bastante otimista com esse jogo e nĂŁo fiquei decepcionado.
Agora falando do jogo mesmo, os gråficos são bastante bonitos, finalmente temos um jogo mais bonito que o Unleashed ? Eu diria que sim, o sistema de dia e noite ficou muito bonito, as Open Zones possuem cenårios realistas mas ficaram muito bonitos, mesmo sendo bem diferente dos jogos do Sonic, eu joguei pelo Nintendo Switch e até no Switch o jogo estå bastante agradåvel, não tenho nada a reclamar da versão do Switch, no geral é com certeza bem mais caprichado do que o Forces !
A histĂłria Ă© outro ponto alto, fazia muito tempo que Sonic nĂŁo tinha histĂłrias tĂŁo interessantes como a sĂ©rie Adventure e Unleashed, Sonic Frontiers provavelmente tem a melhor histĂłria da sĂ©rie, eu adorei o fato deles lembrarem personagens e eventos do passado, como os Black Arms do jogo do Shadow, a batalha do Eggman e Tails na Station Square e atĂ© mesmo aquela vergonha do Chaos 0 e Tails no Forces... Os amigos do Sonic como Tails, Knuckles e Amy estĂŁo nesse jogo, eles estĂŁo presos no Cyberspace e nĂŁo podem interagir com o Sonic fisicamente, assim o Sonic precisa coletar os itens mnemĂŽnicos, eles sĂŁo necessĂĄrios para o decorrer da histĂłria, a Sage Ă© a nova personagem de destaque desse jogo, no começo ela aparentemente Ă© uma vilĂŁ mas depois ela muda com o passar da aventura, gostei bastante dela, alĂ©m disso, o jogo apresenta uma nova raça chamada Os Antigos (ou The Ancients), eles sĂŁo seres misteriosos que envolvem os Kocos e que possuem um grande papel na histĂłria do jogo contada em Flashbacks, em questĂŁo de aparĂȘncia lembram bastante o Chaos 0, jĂĄ existem teorias que ele Ă© um dos Antigos tambĂ©m, era esse tipo de coisa que faltava no Sonic, porque isso aumenta o universo da sĂ©rie e fica muito mais interessante, o Ian Flynn definitivamente fez um Ăłtimo trabalho e espero que ele continue a participar dos jogos !
Os mundos desse jogo se chamam Open Zones, eles as åreas grandes do jogo, existem 5 ilhas que compÔem o arquipélago chamado Starfall Islands:
1- Kronos Island: a primeira ilha do jogo, Ă© um lugar que possui florestas e etc, o TitĂŁ da ilha Ă© o Giganto.
2- Ares Island: a segunda ilha do jogo, basicamente Ă© um deserto gigante, o TitĂŁ da ilha Ă© o Wyvern.
3- Chaos Island: a terceira ilha do jogo, Ă© um local que possui um vulcĂŁo e lava, o TitĂŁ da ilha Ă© o Knight.
4- Rhea Island: a quarta ilha do jogo, é bastante parecida com Kronos Island com a presença de torres, essa ilha não possui um Titã.
5- Ouranos Island: a quinta e Ășltima ilha do jogo, bastante parecida com Kronos Island tambĂ©m, o TitĂŁ da ilha Ă© o Supreme.
No geral, Ă© bastante divertido explorar essas ilhas, o mapa começa bem limitado, mas cada vez que vocĂȘ concluĂ um Puzzle, uma parte do mapa Ă© liberado, quando todos os Puzzles resolvidos, alĂ©m do mapa completado, vocĂȘ pode usar o Fast Travel (apesar de que isso nĂŁo vai ser Ăștil porque vocĂȘ jĂĄ fez tudo nele), as ilhas nĂŁo sĂŁo tĂŁo grandes ao ponto de encher o saco, na verdade se comparar com outros jogos de mundo aberto, sĂŁo bem pequenas, nĂŁo tenho uma ilha favorita mas a Rhea Island infelizmente Ă© a mais fraca, jĂĄ que o Ășnico objetivo Ă© ir atĂ© as torres, ela nĂŁo tem exploração.
O Sonic possui um sistema de combate, além dos movimentos clåssicos dele como Homing Attack, agora o Sonic tem uma Skill Tree, ele pode lançar vårios socos, chutes, tornados, raios e etc ! Os golpes são bastante poderosos e apelÔes, eles facilitam bastante as coisas.
Nas Open Zones, temos tambĂ©m os Kocos AnciĂŁo e o Eremita, eles aumentam os atributos do Sonic, o Koco AnciĂŁo pode aumentar a velocidade e a quantidade de anĂ©is se vocĂȘ levar uma certa quantidade de Kocos e o Eremita pode aumentar a força e a defesa, alĂ©m de conseguir podem alterar a distribuição de nĂveis de anĂ©is e velocidade, eles sĂŁo bem Ășteis pois sĂŁo a Ășnica maneira de melhorar o Sonic.
Existe uma ĂĄrea isolada do resto do jogo que o Big the Cat retorna, sim, o Big the Cat em um jogo principal da sĂ©rie depois de tanto tempo ausente, a mecĂąnica de pesca estĂĄ de volta, basta coletar as moedas roxas que estĂŁo espalhadas nas Open Zones e aĂ vocĂȘ poderĂĄ pescar, ela estĂĄ BEM melhor e mais simplificada tambĂ©m, o Sonic pode pescar vĂĄrias coisas, como peixes e outros animais do mar, alĂ©m de tickets para vocĂȘ pescar sem gastar moedas roxas, itens bastante especĂficos como alguns inimigos clĂĄssicos e a placa do final de fase dos jogos clĂĄssicos, mas os principais itens sĂŁo os Egg Memo, sĂŁo ĂĄudios do Dr. Eggman que ajudam aumentar a lore do jogo, fazem referĂȘncias aos jogos passados tambĂ©m.
Agora que jĂĄ falei brevemente das Opens Zones, temos as fases de Cyberspace, elas sĂŁo boas... Mas podiam ser um pouquinho mais criativas, principalmente nos temas, existem sĂł 4, Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary e Cidade, isso fica bastante repetitivo, as fases em si na grande maioria sĂŁo fases recicladas do Sonic Adventure 2, Unleashed e Generations, sĂŁo bem divertidas porque sĂŁo as fases dos jogos anteriores, o Level Design Ă© idĂȘntico, o que muda sĂŁo apenas os grĂĄficos, meu problema com essas fases Ă© que a SEGA nĂŁo falou (e nem fala) em nenhum momento que as fases sĂŁo uma homenagem aos jogos antigos e blĂĄ blĂĄ blĂĄ, parece que sĂł pegaram pra agilizar o desenvolvimento do jogo, foram os fĂŁs que perceberam essa maracutaia, nĂŁo estou reclamando do fato de serem recicladas mas sim da SEGA falar como se todas as fases fossem novas.
Os chefes desse jogo sĂŁo outro ponto alto, com certeza sĂŁo os melhores chefes da franquia, os TitĂŁs estĂŁo em todas as ilhas (com excessĂŁo da Rhea Island), nessas batalhas usamos o Super Sonic para lutar com eles ! Isso dĂĄ uma imersĂŁo muito Ă©pica, os TitĂŁs sĂŁo muito legais, os meus chefes favoritos sĂŁo o Giganto, Supreme e o Chefe Final, falando dele, ele sĂł estĂĄ disponĂvel se vocĂȘ jogar na dificuldade DifĂcil, a gameplay muda bastante com ele, meu Ășnico problema com ele Ă© o design que nĂŁo vou falar por motivos de Spoilers mas Ă© bem decepcionante.
Para terminar, a trilha sonora, ela Ă© excelente como na grande maioria das vezes, as mĂșsicas cantadas sĂŁo as melhores mĂșsicas do jogo e algumas das melhores da franquia, temos em torno de 6 temas principais ! NĂŁo vou mencionar as minhas favoritas porque eu jĂĄ falei disso na minha lista das trilhas sonoras favoritas, hoje em dia nĂŁo mudou tanta coisa desde o dia que postei a lista.
Sonic Frontiers é um excelente jogo e virou o meu Sonic favorito de todos, eu não sei explicar, gostei de tudo nele, estou bem satisfeito com esse jogo, não estou decepcionado de jeito nenhum, na verdade superou minhas expectativas, mas ainda assim felizmente foi anunciado que o jogo vai receber 3 Updates de graça ! O primeiro deles lançou hoje mesmo (22 de março) e tem bastante coisa, mas o verdadeiro Update serå o 3, que vamos jogar com outros personagens ! Enfim, nós nos vemos na próxima Review e FALOUUUUUUUUU !
Shockingly brilliant and relentlessly at war with itself, you could probably create the perfect Sonic game by taking a list of every design decision Frontiers makes and doing the exact same thing or the exact opposite. It is a game defined by its contradictions. It is a game about going fast; jumping loses all your momentum. It's the first Sonic game whose levels I've enjoyed enough to try optimizing; its challenge times are a joke and it has no way to compare times with others or yourself. It asks you to track a complex web of set pieces through the sky; it has pop-in so bad that most of those set pieces are totally invisible unless you're practically on top of them.
Among a sea of open world games, Sonic Frontiers is one of precious few to deeply innovate on the form. It stridently makes the case that the act of movement through the world can be intrinsic to play rather than a chore to accomplish once and then hide behind fast travel forever after. And once it's given the player just enough time to internalize that lesson, it undercuts itself completely by adding a totally unnecessary fast travel system.
The cyberspace levels (classic self-contained Sonic level design) are layered and engagingâbut only if you know how to use the undocumented Magnet Dash technique, wherein you cancel a homing attack into a massive air dash. This trick hits the perfect balance of being doable even by a non-speedrunner like me, totally recontextualizing level designs, and being conditional enough to keep the structure of the level relevant. But while some levels feel like they were designed with it in mind, others will trap you in inaccessible level geometry or totally wreck your camera.
Here's the thing, though: whatever else it may be, Sonic Frontiers is interesting. Some of its choices may be agonizingly conservative or blatantly stupid, true, but many are bold and an impressive number of those end up panning out. It's a AAA game that's messy and outré and occasionally fabulously daring at a time when AAA has come increasingly to mean intense polish and rigid uniformity. That alone is worth celebrating.
Among a sea of open world games, Sonic Frontiers is one of precious few to deeply innovate on the form. It stridently makes the case that the act of movement through the world can be intrinsic to play rather than a chore to accomplish once and then hide behind fast travel forever after. And once it's given the player just enough time to internalize that lesson, it undercuts itself completely by adding a totally unnecessary fast travel system.
The cyberspace levels (classic self-contained Sonic level design) are layered and engagingâbut only if you know how to use the undocumented Magnet Dash technique, wherein you cancel a homing attack into a massive air dash. This trick hits the perfect balance of being doable even by a non-speedrunner like me, totally recontextualizing level designs, and being conditional enough to keep the structure of the level relevant. But while some levels feel like they were designed with it in mind, others will trap you in inaccessible level geometry or totally wreck your camera.
Here's the thing, though: whatever else it may be, Sonic Frontiers is interesting. Some of its choices may be agonizingly conservative or blatantly stupid, true, but many are bold and an impressive number of those end up panning out. It's a AAA game that's messy and outré and occasionally fabulously daring at a time when AAA has come increasingly to mean intense polish and rigid uniformity. That alone is worth celebrating.
NĂŁo esperava encontrar uma catarse com tanto domĂnio do formato da mĂdia em um jogo do sonic mundo aberto.
Esse jogo é super consciente. Ele se entende da forma que se apresentou, se apresenta e vai continuar se apresentando até o final.
O vazio, o sentimento de seguir um caminho sem muito propĂłsito, me fez, sem perceber, agir exatamente da forma que esse jogo estava esperando.
Enquanto tudo era estranho, tudo era esquisito e nĂŁo parecia se encaixar, eu via caminhos imperfeitos nos quais eu podia ao menos tentar seguir. Muitas vezes falhando inclusive.
Sabe, agora, como imigrante, eu senti algo bem parecido. Engraçado como joguei um jogo sobre imigração na semana em que me mudo para morar em outro paĂs.
CoincidĂȘncias a parte, esse jogo me pegaria em qualquer condição, pois tudo presente nele faz sentido e dialoga com tudo que gosto em um jogo.
Porém, jå joguei jogos conscientes que não levava a lugar nenhum. Não foi o caso desse jogo.
Apesar de sua importação de mecùnicas coletathon serem um fiasco e vai afastar muita gente, aqueles que entenderem o motivo dessa fixação da obra com o método de esvaziamento de todo e qualquer sentido a palavra "level" vai ficar, como eu fiquei, determinado a ir até o final.
AtĂ© porque, nĂŁo pode ser por nada nĂ©? Esse jogo nĂŁo pode ser tĂŁo consciente apenas para acabar se descobrindo vazio nessa consciĂȘncia e nĂŁo ter nada alĂ©m de mapas e level design imperfeitos e vazios.
Mas nĂŁo, levado por essa consciĂȘncia descobri uma substancia que me trouxe emocionalmente como poucos jogos fizeram.
Seus momentos mais seguros são com boss fights duras e maciças enrijecidas por musicas poderosas. Porém, ao final, esses momentos se veem emulsificados por uma ternura e sensibilidade que torna essa obra uma exceção de emoção nesse ano.
Até então sempre preferia jogos side scroller do sonic por achar minimamente divertidos. Esse jogo me fez ir atrås de todos os jogos de universo 3D.
Esse jogo é super consciente. Ele se entende da forma que se apresentou, se apresenta e vai continuar se apresentando até o final.
O vazio, o sentimento de seguir um caminho sem muito propĂłsito, me fez, sem perceber, agir exatamente da forma que esse jogo estava esperando.
Enquanto tudo era estranho, tudo era esquisito e nĂŁo parecia se encaixar, eu via caminhos imperfeitos nos quais eu podia ao menos tentar seguir. Muitas vezes falhando inclusive.
Sabe, agora, como imigrante, eu senti algo bem parecido. Engraçado como joguei um jogo sobre imigração na semana em que me mudo para morar em outro paĂs.
CoincidĂȘncias a parte, esse jogo me pegaria em qualquer condição, pois tudo presente nele faz sentido e dialoga com tudo que gosto em um jogo.
Porém, jå joguei jogos conscientes que não levava a lugar nenhum. Não foi o caso desse jogo.
Apesar de sua importação de mecùnicas coletathon serem um fiasco e vai afastar muita gente, aqueles que entenderem o motivo dessa fixação da obra com o método de esvaziamento de todo e qualquer sentido a palavra "level" vai ficar, como eu fiquei, determinado a ir até o final.
AtĂ© porque, nĂŁo pode ser por nada nĂ©? Esse jogo nĂŁo pode ser tĂŁo consciente apenas para acabar se descobrindo vazio nessa consciĂȘncia e nĂŁo ter nada alĂ©m de mapas e level design imperfeitos e vazios.
Mas nĂŁo, levado por essa consciĂȘncia descobri uma substancia que me trouxe emocionalmente como poucos jogos fizeram.
Seus momentos mais seguros são com boss fights duras e maciças enrijecidas por musicas poderosas. Porém, ao final, esses momentos se veem emulsificados por uma ternura e sensibilidade que torna essa obra uma exceção de emoção nesse ano.
Até então sempre preferia jogos side scroller do sonic por achar minimamente divertidos. Esse jogo me fez ir atrås de todos os jogos de universo 3D.
during interviews a lot they said that they consider this the next step for the series like how sonic adventure was back then and i think that's actually insanely accurate
any fuckin notable issue i have with this game technically, control wise, structurally, etc is so incredibly mute when this is the closest i think a sonic game has ever gotten to fully realizing every idea it wanted to get across
in my eyes, by the end this game's themes in writing/gameplay/music/etc all revolve around showing the heart of sonic and this whole series and why it'll never really die no matter how badly the past can cause you problems
i dunno know if anything for sonic is more perfect than than the final boss telling at you through the entire fight that trying is worthless cuz so many before you have failed only for sonic to never even think twice on pushing ahead anyways
this series means so much to me, and i'm glad to see it back
any fuckin notable issue i have with this game technically, control wise, structurally, etc is so incredibly mute when this is the closest i think a sonic game has ever gotten to fully realizing every idea it wanted to get across
in my eyes, by the end this game's themes in writing/gameplay/music/etc all revolve around showing the heart of sonic and this whole series and why it'll never really die no matter how badly the past can cause you problems
i dunno know if anything for sonic is more perfect than than the final boss telling at you through the entire fight that trying is worthless cuz so many before you have failed only for sonic to never even think twice on pushing ahead anyways
this series means so much to me, and i'm glad to see it back
I've never seen a fandom more willing and able to put up with immense amounts of bullshit than the Sonic fandom. It's actually incredible how resilient and patient this juggernaut fanbase is with a series that continually shoots itself in the foot and trips over its own anthropomorphic cock (when it comes to the games, at least; Sonic side material is usually pretty solid or at least enjoyable enough). Like, it must be a fucking endurance test to be a Sonic fan. You've been forced to put up with dead end after dead end for almost two decades by this point: Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06, Unleashed, Colors, Sonic 4, Lost World, Forces, just a constant barrage of poorly-constructed mainline games that are divisive at best and fucking awful at worst. Every now and then you'll get a pleasantly-surprising diamond in the rough like Generations or Mania (the latter of which is arguably more of a fan game than a Sonic Team game) or a fun sideline experiment like Sonic Riders or those racing games, but these throw-the-dog-a-bone moments are so few and far between whereas disappointment is a dime a dozen. How the hell can you stomach this much perpetual abuse? Is Sonic the toxic on-and-off ex you just can't get rid of no matter how hard he pisses you off?
Well, speaking as someone that used to utterly adore Sonic, I can tell you exactly what it is: nostalgia and Stockholm Syndrome. Were it not for these two essential ingredients, I wouldn't even give Sonic the time of day. Sure, I like to play bad games sometimes; hell, some of my favorite games tend to be janky pieces of shit from time to time (Fallout: New Vegas, inFamous, etc). But Sonic is such a uniquely depressing kind of 'bad' because the prospect of Sonic capturing that old magic he used to have is constantly dangled in front of our faces like a carrot on a stick. We either constantly delude ourselves into thinking "well, shit, maybe it'll be good this time?", or we wind up buying the damn games anyway even though we know they'll be terrible.
(I'm reminded of this one old fan comic on Deviantart where two guys on a couch complain about how lame Sonic and the Black Knight looks like, how the very hook of Sonic being an Arthurian knight and wielding a sword is fucking stupid, because make no mistake, it assuredly is... and then they mutually agree they're gonna cough up $60 for it anyway and just let the conversation drop. That is exactly what it means to be a Sonic fan. You learn to love the beating.)
Why? Why do we put up with this? Why do we indulge in this self-destructive, ritualistic behavior? Because we're children. Not just Sonic fans, mind you: we're all children, all of us. Every single time Sonic does something even a little radical, the inner child that still exists in all of us constantly guides our hands to our wallets like a greedy phantom puppeteer. This is the same inner child that makes Star Wars fans put up with literal decades' worth of trashfire source material, because either they grew up with it and aren't willing to part with those memories, or their parents did and they just forced their children to put up with it as well.
Sonic holds a very special place in a lot of our Millenial-Zoomer hearts, and it makes the prospect of pulling the plug and abandoning the wish-washy blue blur that much harder to commit to. Sonic was the very first video game I ever bought. (He was also the first comic series I ever read.) I was a starry-eyed tiny little boy buying this strange purple square they call a "Gamecube" that I knew nothing about, all because I saw some other kids at this daycare playing the SA2B multiplayer on Radical Highway (yes, exactly that level, I will never forget this visual). It looked super fucking cool; even though I had no idea what a video game or a video game console even was, I just wanted whatever this 'Sonic Adventure 2 Battle' even was. We were lucky enough to be able to afford it, and the guy at Target even threw in a free copy of Metroid Prime. I hope that guy at Target is living his best fucking life, man, because Prime is easily one of the best first-person shooters ever made. What a bangarang game, even if I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. And after playing through SA2B and being absolutely dazzled by the campy, colorful grandeur contained within it, I was hooked. Sonic became my everything. For almost ten years, I bought every single game that came out the moment I was able to, I eagerly watched the cartoons and the OVA, I drew fanart and made Sonic OCs of my own (Alex the Hedgehog was so cool; strangely enough, I don't recall ever making a "Sam the Hedgehog"), and I was a loyal subscriber to the comic books even after I started growing out of Sonic (around middle school, so after Black Knight was released) because I found the Archie Comics' plotline to be just that engrossing and engaging (and convoluted).
I was a child, so of course I had no idea that Heroes was a repetitive, ice-rinky slog, that Sonic 06 was a buggy, broken mess, that Unleashed was 80% slowass brawling and 20% "press square to win", or even that Sonic and the Secret Rings was complete and utter fucking drivel. How could I have known? I was a child. I just loved what Sonic brought to the table. I loved him, and all my friends loved him, and that sense of community and belonging is what kept us anchored to Sonic throughout our formative years.
See, look at all the flowery and evocative language I'm using. These are fond memories. And this is exactly the trap that Sonic uses to keep ensnaring us time and time again. This is why the "toxic ex you can't get rid of" metaphor is honestly pretty apt. No matter how often Sonic fucks up, or pisses us off, or makes national headlines when its literal 15th anniversary game is one of the worst games ever made... we come flocking back to Sonic's arms no matter what, because that damned smirk is just so inviting and we just want to protect Sonic from all the people that keep making fun of him, even if he kinda brings it on himself.
When I saw Sonic 2 in theaters, the entire auditorium cheered when Sonic transformed into Super Sonic. It was a downright standing ovation. And I didn't just join in, I helped ensure the ovation lingered, like a conductor wielding an excitable baton. Have you ever been in the middle of a standing ovation? Being in the epicenter of such a sweeping but simple display of emotion and catharsis? That was a moment, man. This was the first time any of us had ever seen Super Sonic on the big screen; it was like every childhood dream come to life in a single, explosive, heartwarming moment.
And it was in that moment that I understood: as long as children are around, and as long as we keep our inner child and our empathy alive and well... Sonic will never die. As long as there are children, there will always be Sonic, because Sonic will never not be appealing to children. Because he's the fastest thing alive, the coolest kid on the block, and what you see is what you get: just a guy that loves adventure.
...but god damn it Sonic makes it fucking hard to love him sometimes, this game is absolute dogshit, it's boring, hollow, repetitive, surprisingly blandly-written even though they got a professional writer to take the reins, the open world design has a ton of random rails, springs, and platforms placed haphazardly throughout the island, resulting in an incoherent mess of an open world that looks like a procedurally-generated Forge map or custom Smash level made by an eager 8-year-old, the game blatantly reuses cut-down levels from past Boost Formula games just to pad out the runtime, some sick fuck on the dev team thought it'd be funny to make Light Dash fucking L3 on the PS4 controller, you have to collect items to increase your top speed (???), and there are moments where you have to collect a bunch of items in an UNSKIPPABLE collect-a-thon quest just to activate a cutscene that'll tell you to collect even more items for the next batch of unavoidable collect-a-thon chores and tonally-dissonant minigames.
Yes, you read that right. Sometimes you have to do a fetch quest just to activate a cutscene that tells you to do MORE fetch quests. Never stop disappointing us, Sonic. Never stop vandalizing our hearts. It's what you do best, you charming little rascal.
Well, speaking as someone that used to utterly adore Sonic, I can tell you exactly what it is: nostalgia and Stockholm Syndrome. Were it not for these two essential ingredients, I wouldn't even give Sonic the time of day. Sure, I like to play bad games sometimes; hell, some of my favorite games tend to be janky pieces of shit from time to time (Fallout: New Vegas, inFamous, etc). But Sonic is such a uniquely depressing kind of 'bad' because the prospect of Sonic capturing that old magic he used to have is constantly dangled in front of our faces like a carrot on a stick. We either constantly delude ourselves into thinking "well, shit, maybe it'll be good this time?", or we wind up buying the damn games anyway even though we know they'll be terrible.
(I'm reminded of this one old fan comic on Deviantart where two guys on a couch complain about how lame Sonic and the Black Knight looks like, how the very hook of Sonic being an Arthurian knight and wielding a sword is fucking stupid, because make no mistake, it assuredly is... and then they mutually agree they're gonna cough up $60 for it anyway and just let the conversation drop. That is exactly what it means to be a Sonic fan. You learn to love the beating.)
Why? Why do we put up with this? Why do we indulge in this self-destructive, ritualistic behavior? Because we're children. Not just Sonic fans, mind you: we're all children, all of us. Every single time Sonic does something even a little radical, the inner child that still exists in all of us constantly guides our hands to our wallets like a greedy phantom puppeteer. This is the same inner child that makes Star Wars fans put up with literal decades' worth of trashfire source material, because either they grew up with it and aren't willing to part with those memories, or their parents did and they just forced their children to put up with it as well.
Sonic holds a very special place in a lot of our Millenial-Zoomer hearts, and it makes the prospect of pulling the plug and abandoning the wish-washy blue blur that much harder to commit to. Sonic was the very first video game I ever bought. (He was also the first comic series I ever read.) I was a starry-eyed tiny little boy buying this strange purple square they call a "Gamecube" that I knew nothing about, all because I saw some other kids at this daycare playing the SA2B multiplayer on Radical Highway (yes, exactly that level, I will never forget this visual). It looked super fucking cool; even though I had no idea what a video game or a video game console even was, I just wanted whatever this 'Sonic Adventure 2 Battle' even was. We were lucky enough to be able to afford it, and the guy at Target even threw in a free copy of Metroid Prime. I hope that guy at Target is living his best fucking life, man, because Prime is easily one of the best first-person shooters ever made. What a bangarang game, even if I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. And after playing through SA2B and being absolutely dazzled by the campy, colorful grandeur contained within it, I was hooked. Sonic became my everything. For almost ten years, I bought every single game that came out the moment I was able to, I eagerly watched the cartoons and the OVA, I drew fanart and made Sonic OCs of my own (Alex the Hedgehog was so cool; strangely enough, I don't recall ever making a "Sam the Hedgehog"), and I was a loyal subscriber to the comic books even after I started growing out of Sonic (around middle school, so after Black Knight was released) because I found the Archie Comics' plotline to be just that engrossing and engaging (and convoluted).
I was a child, so of course I had no idea that Heroes was a repetitive, ice-rinky slog, that Sonic 06 was a buggy, broken mess, that Unleashed was 80% slowass brawling and 20% "press square to win", or even that Sonic and the Secret Rings was complete and utter fucking drivel. How could I have known? I was a child. I just loved what Sonic brought to the table. I loved him, and all my friends loved him, and that sense of community and belonging is what kept us anchored to Sonic throughout our formative years.
See, look at all the flowery and evocative language I'm using. These are fond memories. And this is exactly the trap that Sonic uses to keep ensnaring us time and time again. This is why the "toxic ex you can't get rid of" metaphor is honestly pretty apt. No matter how often Sonic fucks up, or pisses us off, or makes national headlines when its literal 15th anniversary game is one of the worst games ever made... we come flocking back to Sonic's arms no matter what, because that damned smirk is just so inviting and we just want to protect Sonic from all the people that keep making fun of him, even if he kinda brings it on himself.
When I saw Sonic 2 in theaters, the entire auditorium cheered when Sonic transformed into Super Sonic. It was a downright standing ovation. And I didn't just join in, I helped ensure the ovation lingered, like a conductor wielding an excitable baton. Have you ever been in the middle of a standing ovation? Being in the epicenter of such a sweeping but simple display of emotion and catharsis? That was a moment, man. This was the first time any of us had ever seen Super Sonic on the big screen; it was like every childhood dream come to life in a single, explosive, heartwarming moment.
And it was in that moment that I understood: as long as children are around, and as long as we keep our inner child and our empathy alive and well... Sonic will never die. As long as there are children, there will always be Sonic, because Sonic will never not be appealing to children. Because he's the fastest thing alive, the coolest kid on the block, and what you see is what you get: just a guy that loves adventure.
...but god damn it Sonic makes it fucking hard to love him sometimes, this game is absolute dogshit, it's boring, hollow, repetitive, surprisingly blandly-written even though they got a professional writer to take the reins, the open world design has a ton of random rails, springs, and platforms placed haphazardly throughout the island, resulting in an incoherent mess of an open world that looks like a procedurally-generated Forge map or custom Smash level made by an eager 8-year-old, the game blatantly reuses cut-down levels from past Boost Formula games just to pad out the runtime, some sick fuck on the dev team thought it'd be funny to make Light Dash fucking L3 on the PS4 controller, you have to collect items to increase your top speed (???), and there are moments where you have to collect a bunch of items in an UNSKIPPABLE collect-a-thon quest just to activate a cutscene that'll tell you to collect even more items for the next batch of unavoidable collect-a-thon chores and tonally-dissonant minigames.
Yes, you read that right. Sometimes you have to do a fetch quest just to activate a cutscene that tells you to do MORE fetch quests. Never stop disappointing us, Sonic. Never stop vandalizing our hearts. It's what you do best, you charming little rascal.
Itâs interesting in retrospect how much of my attitude towards video games as an art form, and to that extent, my initial excitement turned to teenage irony to now genuine love and aversion to the ironic and self-deprecative has formed due to a constant fluctuation in my love of certain aspects of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. The series has essentially been there as long as I can remember; my first video games being Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES and Sonic 2 on a family friendâs Genesis. Sonic 2 was one of the first video games I ever properly beat, and with the Mega Collection+ disc for Gamecube, my world opened up to the rest of the classic lineup, the new âmodernâ look for Sonic, and thus my entryway into Newgrounds, into the early budding version of YouTube and DeviantArt, and generally speaking, internet culture right in the peak of that Wild West era. Iâve talked a bit before about the reevaluation towards unabashed love of the Adventure duology Iâve taken in my early 20s, and with that, for the first time in well over a decade, Iâd happily call myself some form of âSonic fanâ, even if itâs just for about the first decade of the franchise and some scattered releases after the fact. In fact, in accidental preparation for Frontiers, my best friends and I sat down together over a few weeks - one of whom had never played a Sonic game - and essentially played through a crash course of the seriesâ history, featuring Sonic 1, CD, 2, 3 & Knuckles, NiGHTS into DreamsâŠ, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, and Sonic Mania. The timing just synced up perfectly, and the group by the end were committed, open fans of this series, excited to see this stark new direction Frontiers was entertaining the notion of. I was ready for Ian Flynn at the helm; Iâve read two arcs of the IDW run and, especially as a total Metal Sonic fan (lol), I found his work some of the most compelling the narrative of this franchise has been since the experimental days of Sonic Adventure 2. This was shaping up to be a breath of fresh air in a series in desperate need.
Our first half-hour with Frontiers was nothing short of magic - just feeling out how this new, alien Sonic played around in this atmospheric sandbox as familiar level design staples were scattered around like foliage or fauna in a strikingly abstract and bizarre way for this franchise was nothing short of boggling. First impressions were striking, a seemingly reserved tone with a drawn-back performance from Mike Pollockâs Eggman kept the intrigue high. All in all, the first island was a very fun experience, seeing the series blend together a sampling from essentially all 3D titles for gameplay inspirations - the Adventure-esque overworld navigation, combat reminiscent but a vast improvement from titles like Sonic â06 and Unleashed, the boost-era gameplay typically reserved for the Cyberspace sections (more on these later) or for QTEs during challenges or boss fights, and Generations/Forces-inspired aesthetics throughout various aspects of the game. Hell, there were some directly-ripped level gimmicks from Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 that were definitely welcome. And man, if thereâs something no one can take from Frontiers, does it have some of the most showstopping and fucking hype boss fights in the series - I was mixed on the Frontiers soundtrack overall, not really immersed by its Breath of the Wild-esque overall ambient tracks and certainly not a fan of the modern dubstep and EDM of the Cyberspace tracks, but did the music team NAIL that post-hardcore, borderline skramz influence on the boss fights. Definitely struck a very similar chord to your âLive & Learnâs or âWhat Iâm Made Ofâs from Sonics long ago. That said, I remember turning to the group at the end of the first island and saying âitâs good, definitely good⊠but Iâm hoping they havenât played all their cards alreadyâ. Sad to say, I was pretty on the money.
If thereâs any complaint Iâm not generally anticipating to make about a Sonic game, itâs that itâs too long. Hell, Iâd actually say a major complaint Iâd had about games I enjoy like Sonic Generations or Sonic Advance are that there wasnât enough of them - and yet, I feel like Sonic Frontiers is out here in all of its ambition, still clocking out like five to eight hours after its welcome has worn out. When it comes down to it, by the third island, youâve likely maxed out the skill tree, upgraded your stats to well beyond the max required to make the game relatively easy, and now youâve really got nothing to do other than repeat the same open overworld/boost-era Cyberspace levels ad nauseum to get enough trinkets to unlock the next cutscene. It doesnât help that the majority of locales within this game feel boring, lifeless and painfully generic. There were one or two sections of islands two and four that reminded me of Sonic â06, not in a bad way, and the Chaos Island was definitely the most intriguing for speculation - until that turned out to be nothing - but beyond that, this game struggles to hold an aesthetic personality of its own at almost every turn. Even the Cyberspace levels are just texture-dumps of the Genesis-era levels from Generations, some even copying massive chunks of actual level design, with one ânewâ template that just looks like half of Sonic Forces anyways. But perhaps the greatest misstep in Frontiersâ execution came from the most shocking place - its narrative.
I had really high hopes for the story of Frontiers - as I mentioned, I really enjoy what Iâve read of Ian Flynnâs run with the series in the IDW comic series. A return to self-confidence, earnest, and⊠âmatureâ, even, takes on the Sonic the Hedgehog series sounded really engrossing; this series is assuredly at its best when shooting for those moments, even if itâs a little misconstrued. Thereâs a reason why Sonic Adventure 2 is my favorite story this series has told. And yet, Iâve got to be honest - I think Frontiersâ story isnât just awful, but I donât think itâs nearly as earnest and mature as a lot of fellow fans are pushing it to be. For a game that deliberately stands as the next step in a series in desperate need of a new launching-off point, the crux of its lore requires understanding of at least Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure - not to mention deliberate continuity pulls from⊠basically, the entire series, even though despite all of its intentions of course-correction it also blatantly contradicts stuff that the author is clearly aware of within the seriesâ history (the largest origin story of a certain apex of Sonicâs history is in stark disconnect with an element introduced in Sonic Unleashed that the author is a step away from outright referencing). Iâm absolutely open to a more mature, reserved, and realized take on Sonicâs cast - and for what itâs worth, I think Eggman and Knuckles walk away with some of their best characterization maybe EVER - but for Amy and Tails, itâs ironic how much this game tries to make a big deal of these major steps for the characters considering these arcs had already been more or less resolved by Adventure 1 and 2, or at the very latest, Heroes. And itâs not like any of these arcs matter anyways because ultimately theyâre sidelined for the Act 2 Finale where they become the Friendship Circle for Sonic again and mitigate the only interesting plot-thread in the game, revolving around some digital corruption overtaking Sonic that just⊠stops. The newcomer, Sage, is tough to talk about - personally, I found her to be a retread of this exact same character over and over that weâve seen constantly throughout the Sonic series, and considering Iâm a fan of Metal Sonic, Gamma and Shadow, itâs not like Iâm averse to some overlap⊠but I just found her flat and aimless. I donât really buy the dynamic she fosters with Eggman, I donât buy her independent growth, but I suppose if I was a little kid and Iâd never played any of the games with the characters she âborrowsâ a lot of her moments from, I might be a lot softer and more welcoming of her. Voice performances are a mixed bag and I donât want to shit on anyoneâs efforts, so Iâll instead just shout out Mike Pollock for perhaps his most complicated, earnestly great Eggman to date. Just a wonderful job from him all around.
Ultimately, Frontiers is the most conflicted I feel about a Sonic game to date. Thereâs a lot I do like about it, and I plan to check out the story/character DLC when itâs released later this year, and I think it was a smart choice to make that free because I already donât feel Frontiers warrants its full price tag. Itâs a series of steps in the right direction but seems, narratively, still stuck too close to its past. The self-deprecation of the Colors-era has manifested as taking potshots at one's own teenage years - the self-awareness and aptitude to growth is welcome, but next time, letâs do it with more confidence and personality to call yourself. Sonic Team, letâs try to not panic and reset this shit again next time. And for the love of god, Iizuka, just make the Adventure game you clearly wanted this to be.
Our first half-hour with Frontiers was nothing short of magic - just feeling out how this new, alien Sonic played around in this atmospheric sandbox as familiar level design staples were scattered around like foliage or fauna in a strikingly abstract and bizarre way for this franchise was nothing short of boggling. First impressions were striking, a seemingly reserved tone with a drawn-back performance from Mike Pollockâs Eggman kept the intrigue high. All in all, the first island was a very fun experience, seeing the series blend together a sampling from essentially all 3D titles for gameplay inspirations - the Adventure-esque overworld navigation, combat reminiscent but a vast improvement from titles like Sonic â06 and Unleashed, the boost-era gameplay typically reserved for the Cyberspace sections (more on these later) or for QTEs during challenges or boss fights, and Generations/Forces-inspired aesthetics throughout various aspects of the game. Hell, there were some directly-ripped level gimmicks from Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 that were definitely welcome. And man, if thereâs something no one can take from Frontiers, does it have some of the most showstopping and fucking hype boss fights in the series - I was mixed on the Frontiers soundtrack overall, not really immersed by its Breath of the Wild-esque overall ambient tracks and certainly not a fan of the modern dubstep and EDM of the Cyberspace tracks, but did the music team NAIL that post-hardcore, borderline skramz influence on the boss fights. Definitely struck a very similar chord to your âLive & Learnâs or âWhat Iâm Made Ofâs from Sonics long ago. That said, I remember turning to the group at the end of the first island and saying âitâs good, definitely good⊠but Iâm hoping they havenât played all their cards alreadyâ. Sad to say, I was pretty on the money.
If thereâs any complaint Iâm not generally anticipating to make about a Sonic game, itâs that itâs too long. Hell, Iâd actually say a major complaint Iâd had about games I enjoy like Sonic Generations or Sonic Advance are that there wasnât enough of them - and yet, I feel like Sonic Frontiers is out here in all of its ambition, still clocking out like five to eight hours after its welcome has worn out. When it comes down to it, by the third island, youâve likely maxed out the skill tree, upgraded your stats to well beyond the max required to make the game relatively easy, and now youâve really got nothing to do other than repeat the same open overworld/boost-era Cyberspace levels ad nauseum to get enough trinkets to unlock the next cutscene. It doesnât help that the majority of locales within this game feel boring, lifeless and painfully generic. There were one or two sections of islands two and four that reminded me of Sonic â06, not in a bad way, and the Chaos Island was definitely the most intriguing for speculation - until that turned out to be nothing - but beyond that, this game struggles to hold an aesthetic personality of its own at almost every turn. Even the Cyberspace levels are just texture-dumps of the Genesis-era levels from Generations, some even copying massive chunks of actual level design, with one ânewâ template that just looks like half of Sonic Forces anyways. But perhaps the greatest misstep in Frontiersâ execution came from the most shocking place - its narrative.
I had really high hopes for the story of Frontiers - as I mentioned, I really enjoy what Iâve read of Ian Flynnâs run with the series in the IDW comic series. A return to self-confidence, earnest, and⊠âmatureâ, even, takes on the Sonic the Hedgehog series sounded really engrossing; this series is assuredly at its best when shooting for those moments, even if itâs a little misconstrued. Thereâs a reason why Sonic Adventure 2 is my favorite story this series has told. And yet, Iâve got to be honest - I think Frontiersâ story isnât just awful, but I donât think itâs nearly as earnest and mature as a lot of fellow fans are pushing it to be. For a game that deliberately stands as the next step in a series in desperate need of a new launching-off point, the crux of its lore requires understanding of at least Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure - not to mention deliberate continuity pulls from⊠basically, the entire series, even though despite all of its intentions of course-correction it also blatantly contradicts stuff that the author is clearly aware of within the seriesâ history (the largest origin story of a certain apex of Sonicâs history is in stark disconnect with an element introduced in Sonic Unleashed that the author is a step away from outright referencing). Iâm absolutely open to a more mature, reserved, and realized take on Sonicâs cast - and for what itâs worth, I think Eggman and Knuckles walk away with some of their best characterization maybe EVER - but for Amy and Tails, itâs ironic how much this game tries to make a big deal of these major steps for the characters considering these arcs had already been more or less resolved by Adventure 1 and 2, or at the very latest, Heroes. And itâs not like any of these arcs matter anyways because ultimately theyâre sidelined for the Act 2 Finale where they become the Friendship Circle for Sonic again and mitigate the only interesting plot-thread in the game, revolving around some digital corruption overtaking Sonic that just⊠stops. The newcomer, Sage, is tough to talk about - personally, I found her to be a retread of this exact same character over and over that weâve seen constantly throughout the Sonic series, and considering Iâm a fan of Metal Sonic, Gamma and Shadow, itâs not like Iâm averse to some overlap⊠but I just found her flat and aimless. I donât really buy the dynamic she fosters with Eggman, I donât buy her independent growth, but I suppose if I was a little kid and Iâd never played any of the games with the characters she âborrowsâ a lot of her moments from, I might be a lot softer and more welcoming of her. Voice performances are a mixed bag and I donât want to shit on anyoneâs efforts, so Iâll instead just shout out Mike Pollock for perhaps his most complicated, earnestly great Eggman to date. Just a wonderful job from him all around.
Ultimately, Frontiers is the most conflicted I feel about a Sonic game to date. Thereâs a lot I do like about it, and I plan to check out the story/character DLC when itâs released later this year, and I think it was a smart choice to make that free because I already donât feel Frontiers warrants its full price tag. Itâs a series of steps in the right direction but seems, narratively, still stuck too close to its past. The self-deprecation of the Colors-era has manifested as taking potshots at one's own teenage years - the self-awareness and aptitude to growth is welcome, but next time, letâs do it with more confidence and personality to call yourself. Sonic Team, letâs try to not panic and reset this shit again next time. And for the love of god, Iizuka, just make the Adventure game you clearly wanted this to be.
Big the Cat gives you Kingdom Hearts secret reports, there's no way this isn't a GOTY contender
If any negative reviews for this game mention 06, Boom, or "rough transition into 3D" at all, do not trust the person who made that review.
holy shit, sega hired this man
really wanted to like this but thereâs so many design flaws that appear to be antithetical to what this series has accomplished in the past:
-the elephant in the room is the severe lack of environmental design with the various assets strewn across the islands. gone are the days of grinding on vines native to its forests or jumping across grassy platforms that couldâve emerged from the habitats that surround us. across every island we get the same navy blue rails and platforms haphazardly floating in the sky. what i would argue is that the facade of naturally occurring level assets is one of the most significant aspects of sonic gameplay as a whole. the world isnât made for sonic. unfortunately the reverse of this idea is what plagues frontiers in many areas.
-could not get immersed into the game due to what iâve said above & how barren and hollow the islands feel. maybe that was the point but⊠i severely doubt it considering sonic teamâs track record. a civilization once thrived on these islands, and all thatâs left for us to ponder upon are.. random pillars and âhousesâ that are no more than areas to hide collectables and not much else. the ruins arenât even placed around cohesively to give the illusion of a village or somewhere once occupied by living beings.
-minigames were never sonic teamâs expertise but i genuinely think frontiers takes the cake for the worst ones in the whole franchise; either theyâre absolutely braindead, too easy, boring, or a combination of the three. donât wanna get into this one too much.
-cyberspace levels almost had me excited at their introductions until i began to realize the level design is all unabashedly recycled from previous games without much amends to them to accommodate frontiersâ different control style. adding insult to injury is the copy and pasting of these levels onto aesthetics that are also recycled! remember green forest and savanna citadel? now their charm and details are completely erased in order to transfer their level layouts onto green hill, chemical plant, or sky sanctuary. itâs a real shame they resorted to this since it was proven they knew how to make engaging level design in the same game! the challenges present in climbing up the towers were some of the most fun i had in the game.
-the gameplay. to give credit where credit is due, sonic actually controls pretty good! unfortunately even this has problems behind it as it was pretty obvious the devs couldnât craft good enough controls on their own, hence the freedom is given to the player to make the game feel right. anyway earlier i had said that frontiers was oppositional to the idea that âthe world isnât made for sonic.â here, everything is artificially curated for our hedgehog. i wouldnât mind as much as i do if the assets and sections covering the islands felt natural and were fluently strung together, but nope. minor 5-to-10 second mostly-automated mini sections are everywhere. wholly uninteresting and sometimes irritating when iâm just trying to traverse the island and accidentally touch a spring or dashpad, 9 times out of 10 sending me into a forced 2D section without any way to escape.
after waiting five years⊠i could definitely say i was disappointed. but! i did enjoy the story & the soundtrack is unmatched as per sonic standard. itâs just unfortunate that thereâs such an absence of attention to detail and contextualization despite what youâd think for an open world title such as this. as for the final boss⊠iâll say it was probably my favorite part of the game since it steals from a game much better than it.
-the elephant in the room is the severe lack of environmental design with the various assets strewn across the islands. gone are the days of grinding on vines native to its forests or jumping across grassy platforms that couldâve emerged from the habitats that surround us. across every island we get the same navy blue rails and platforms haphazardly floating in the sky. what i would argue is that the facade of naturally occurring level assets is one of the most significant aspects of sonic gameplay as a whole. the world isnât made for sonic. unfortunately the reverse of this idea is what plagues frontiers in many areas.
-could not get immersed into the game due to what iâve said above & how barren and hollow the islands feel. maybe that was the point but⊠i severely doubt it considering sonic teamâs track record. a civilization once thrived on these islands, and all thatâs left for us to ponder upon are.. random pillars and âhousesâ that are no more than areas to hide collectables and not much else. the ruins arenât even placed around cohesively to give the illusion of a village or somewhere once occupied by living beings.
-minigames were never sonic teamâs expertise but i genuinely think frontiers takes the cake for the worst ones in the whole franchise; either theyâre absolutely braindead, too easy, boring, or a combination of the three. donât wanna get into this one too much.
-cyberspace levels almost had me excited at their introductions until i began to realize the level design is all unabashedly recycled from previous games without much amends to them to accommodate frontiersâ different control style. adding insult to injury is the copy and pasting of these levels onto aesthetics that are also recycled! remember green forest and savanna citadel? now their charm and details are completely erased in order to transfer their level layouts onto green hill, chemical plant, or sky sanctuary. itâs a real shame they resorted to this since it was proven they knew how to make engaging level design in the same game! the challenges present in climbing up the towers were some of the most fun i had in the game.
-the gameplay. to give credit where credit is due, sonic actually controls pretty good! unfortunately even this has problems behind it as it was pretty obvious the devs couldnât craft good enough controls on their own, hence the freedom is given to the player to make the game feel right. anyway earlier i had said that frontiers was oppositional to the idea that âthe world isnât made for sonic.â here, everything is artificially curated for our hedgehog. i wouldnât mind as much as i do if the assets and sections covering the islands felt natural and were fluently strung together, but nope. minor 5-to-10 second mostly-automated mini sections are everywhere. wholly uninteresting and sometimes irritating when iâm just trying to traverse the island and accidentally touch a spring or dashpad, 9 times out of 10 sending me into a forced 2D section without any way to escape.
after waiting five years⊠i could definitely say i was disappointed. but! i did enjoy the story & the soundtrack is unmatched as per sonic standard. itâs just unfortunate that thereâs such an absence of attention to detail and contextualization despite what youâd think for an open world title such as this. as for the final boss⊠iâll say it was probably my favorite part of the game since it steals from a game much better than it.
     'Pinball predates civilization.'
Played with BertKnot.
The release of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021) marked the de facto end of an era for Japanese animation. By recasting his franchise in a contemplative and optimistic light, Hideaki Anno emphasised the need to embrace life in all its complexity and to take care of ourselves. While fans remain divided over which version they prefer, with some favouring the ending of The End of Evangelion (1997), the change in tone has been recognised as Anno's new-found serenity. The 1997 film represented an excision of his otaku side through the flames of Purgatory, a bitter violence necessitated by the fans' deviation from the discourse developed in the anime. Thrice Upon a Time takes a much more contemplative approach, marking a genuine process of mourning and reconstruction. In particular, the film subtly weaves its characters into real-life scenes, highlighting their relationships with a wider society.
     Rewriting and recontextualisation in Japanese pop-culture
This process of recontextualisation involves a dialogue between official production and fan production. Nicolle Lamerichs shows how the perception of characters is fluid and how fandom reclaims canonical characters to express themes beyond the author's control [1]. The figure of Shinji is particularly subject to these transformations, as he represents the otaku identity and the outcasts of Japanese society. By setting Shinji and the other characters in familiar settings â scenes similar to those in the anime and The End of the Evangelion, but also in everyday sceneries â Anno leaves it to the audience to completely reappropriate these characters, emphasising only their verisimilitude or, conversely, their artificiality. Such rewriting strategies are not uncommon in modern popular fiction, and the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has demonstrated a surprising plasticity in recent years.
Through fan imagination, recent games, the Sonic Boom series (2014), and the Sonic the Hedgehog films (2020, 2022), the franchise has slowly shed the remnants of its kawaī aestheticism and taken on a more serious tone. The culmination was the release of Sonic Frontiers, the marketing cycle of which initially highlighted the shift in the series. The advent of the open world was supposed to renew the game formula, and the visual direction was meant to reflect a new gravitas for the hero, pondering the interpersonal relationships he has with his friends. For a game about renewal, the communication around Sonic Frontiers was relatively timid: the first gameplay footage was withheld for a long time, particularly the Cyberspace stages. This was probably due to the chaotic state of the title, which suffered from multiple development iterations and a serious lack of budget.
     Meaningless references: a futile search for identity
The player assumes the role of Sonic and must explore the Starfall Islands to rescue his friends who have been trapped in a parallel dimension by Dr Eggman and his artificial intelligence, Sage. The adventure consists of exploring five islands filled with micro-objectives that allow the player to collect Chaos Emeralds and engage with the local Titan, who protects the barrier between the real world and reality. Sonic Frontiers borrows extensively from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017), to the point where the original project was intended to be a much slower experience, with Sonic able to walk slowly and ride a horse [2]. The game makes no attempt to hide its direct inspiration, so much so that it directly recreates the Blood Moon scene and simply turns it into a Starfall one. The title rips off ideas from all the recent productions, turning them into a crucible with no identity. The general setting is that of Breath of the Wild, with a soundtrack that loosely copies the ethereal piano sound design, while the battles against the Titans are largely inspired by Shadow of the Colossus (2005), with the same sense of gradual scaling.
The combat system is inspired by recent character action games, with a rather surprising emphasis on combos; the density of the puzzles recalls the exploration of Genshin Impact (2020) and the many activities that dot organically the Teyvat map and blend with the environment; there are many borrowings from Neon Genesis Evangelion as well and, above all, Sonic's own games. But this compilation is particularly clumsy. At Gamescom 2022, fans could see that the level design of Cyberspace stages was lifted from previous entries in the series, including Sonic Adventure 2 (2001), Unleashed (2008) and Generation (2011). While Takashi ÄȘzuka cited the corruption of the hero's memories as the reason for this decision [3], it was more likely a lack of resources and time. Two major problems underline the flawed nature of this approach. Firstly, while the layout of the levels is often taken from previous games, the graphics only vary between four environments: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary and a new zone resembling Crisis City. The result is particularly dull and monotonous, with an overly detailed background and obnoxious visual filters designed to mimic computer corruption.
     Inconsistent design between the various activities
More critically, the gameplay of Sonic Frontiers does not fit in with the old designs. The title opts for a jerky gameplay, with an Aim Attack that is only used for direction and never to gain speed, as Sonic is generally always faster when running unaided. This design dichotomy alters the relationship with the S rank: it seems alternately trivial and overly complicated. In reality, if the player chooses not to play according to the rules dictated by the old Sonic level design, and ignores the optimal and natural route in order to concentrate on Sonic's own movement, the S rank is relatively easy to achieve, although it feels meaningless due to the disconnect with the level. The same problem occurs in the overworld. The islands are particularly empty and visually abysmal, leaving the player to rush from objective to objective to solve uninspiring puzzles or complete ill-conceived mini-games. Gathering Kocos for Amy looks inordinately like the shepherd mini-game in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006), while the hacking mini-games are literally lifted from NieR: Automata (2017). The pinball, in which Sonic does not even act as the ball, is astonishing in its unusual mediocrity, as is the final boss in Hard Mode, a particularly poor and unwelcome shoot'em-up sequence.
For a game that emphasises freedom of exploration, Sonic Frontiers feels commanding. The progression from activity to activity is artificial, with the player's attention drawn to the nearest hideous metal structure. When it comes to action, Sonic's and the camera's movements are always fixed by the rails and the level design, which tries to convince the player that the game is still a platformer. It is particularly peculiar that Chaos Island contains so many 2.5D sequences, which are completely at odds with the open-world spirit of the title. With map exploration dependent on completing micro-objectives, exploration is generally linear or bloated with pointless roundabouts. Sonic's stats do little to shake the game out of its formulaic shackles, and any player who decides to spend a little time fishing to raise Sonic's attributes will find the experience ludicrous, as battles are over in an instant, as they are merely designated as health bars to be lowered during the vulnerability cycle. The game does a particularly poor job of communicating its gameplay intentions, and fights suffer from particularly long downtimes to justify the inclusion of chase sequences. The staging is often unreadable and the camera is frequently in awkward places, blocked by the metal limbs of enemies, if not spinning around to the point of causing serious dizziness. The perspective is also generally very poor, and diving attacks are always rather unpleasant to perform.
     The art of false contemplation
Sonic Frontiers also suffers from poor performance, with serious clipping every few metres. Visually, the various islands are homogeneous, with no visual landmarks to give a clear idea of the world's geography. The fourth and fifth islands are, in fact, direct extensions of the first, further reducing the visual variety of the title. The game tries to impose a darker tone on its atmosphere, relying heavily on simple broken piano chords and a melody that repeats after three bars. Unable to find an identity, the game intersperses this pseudo-contemplation with unwarranted jazz melodies for its mini-games and heroic jingles when the player triumphs. The tone of the story follows this inconsistency: Sonic Frontiers multiplies references without purpose, justifying its existence by exploring the lore of the Ancients-Chao in a modulation on the themes of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker (2021) and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000). The dialogues between Sonic and his companions are an opportunity to rehash themes already dealt with in previous games, under the guise of false maturity.
For Dr Eggman, Sonic Frontiers is an opportunity to discover fatherhood through crude cinematics and shallow, flawed writing. It comes as no surprise that Sonic Frontiers takes up the theme of parenthood transcending blood ties, a subject that has been well-explored in popular Japanese fiction since the 2010s, and has recently been exacerbated. However, this addition seems unjustified, given that Eggman is such a passive character. The game seems to be a collection of ideas with no coherence, whether in its game design, narrative or artistic direction. Taking elements that have worked in other cultural productions, the title indulges in a chaotic jumble, defending its own identity through a sort of recapitulation, a moment of reflection in the light of a new maturity.
This was Anno's project with Thrice Upon a Time, bringing an era to a close and ushering in a new one. All the characters of Evangelion were contextualised in a new world, both in the diegesis and in the context of film's production. It was a final attempt to respond to a troubled Japanese youth, battered by the uncertainty of the labour market and the breakdown of traditional interpersonal relationships: it is from this observation and a mature optimism that hope is born. Sonic Frontiers draws no lessons from the past and says nothing. It revels in its own status as a game of transition, with no intention of defining the future direction of the franchise; ironically, Sonic Superstars seems to disavow Frontiers' project by once again taking the golden nostalgia route already exploited by Sonic Mania (2017). This is unfortunate, as the idea of an open-world Sonic game is not necessarily meaningless, but it deserves better than feeble half-measures.
__________
[1] Nicolle Lamerichs, âThe Emotional Realism of Anime: Rewriting Characters and Affective Reception in Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Timeâ, in Mechademia, vol. 15, no. 1, 2022, pp. 81-102.
[2] Yuzuke Takahashi, âTGS2022ăăœăăăŻăăăłăăŁăąăć¶äœè ă€ăłăżăă„ăŒăăŻă©ă·ăăŻïŒăąăăłă«ç¶ă珏äžäžä»ŁăœăăăŻă«èŸŒăăăăæăăšăŻâ, on 4Gamer.net, 16th September 2022.
[3] Zackari Greif, âSonic Team Leader Explains Sonic Frontiers' Use of Old Level Designsâ, on gamerant.com, 30th August 2022, consulted on 16th June 2023.
Played with BertKnot.
The release of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021) marked the de facto end of an era for Japanese animation. By recasting his franchise in a contemplative and optimistic light, Hideaki Anno emphasised the need to embrace life in all its complexity and to take care of ourselves. While fans remain divided over which version they prefer, with some favouring the ending of The End of Evangelion (1997), the change in tone has been recognised as Anno's new-found serenity. The 1997 film represented an excision of his otaku side through the flames of Purgatory, a bitter violence necessitated by the fans' deviation from the discourse developed in the anime. Thrice Upon a Time takes a much more contemplative approach, marking a genuine process of mourning and reconstruction. In particular, the film subtly weaves its characters into real-life scenes, highlighting their relationships with a wider society.
     Rewriting and recontextualisation in Japanese pop-culture
This process of recontextualisation involves a dialogue between official production and fan production. Nicolle Lamerichs shows how the perception of characters is fluid and how fandom reclaims canonical characters to express themes beyond the author's control [1]. The figure of Shinji is particularly subject to these transformations, as he represents the otaku identity and the outcasts of Japanese society. By setting Shinji and the other characters in familiar settings â scenes similar to those in the anime and The End of the Evangelion, but also in everyday sceneries â Anno leaves it to the audience to completely reappropriate these characters, emphasising only their verisimilitude or, conversely, their artificiality. Such rewriting strategies are not uncommon in modern popular fiction, and the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has demonstrated a surprising plasticity in recent years.
Through fan imagination, recent games, the Sonic Boom series (2014), and the Sonic the Hedgehog films (2020, 2022), the franchise has slowly shed the remnants of its kawaī aestheticism and taken on a more serious tone. The culmination was the release of Sonic Frontiers, the marketing cycle of which initially highlighted the shift in the series. The advent of the open world was supposed to renew the game formula, and the visual direction was meant to reflect a new gravitas for the hero, pondering the interpersonal relationships he has with his friends. For a game about renewal, the communication around Sonic Frontiers was relatively timid: the first gameplay footage was withheld for a long time, particularly the Cyberspace stages. This was probably due to the chaotic state of the title, which suffered from multiple development iterations and a serious lack of budget.
     Meaningless references: a futile search for identity
The player assumes the role of Sonic and must explore the Starfall Islands to rescue his friends who have been trapped in a parallel dimension by Dr Eggman and his artificial intelligence, Sage. The adventure consists of exploring five islands filled with micro-objectives that allow the player to collect Chaos Emeralds and engage with the local Titan, who protects the barrier between the real world and reality. Sonic Frontiers borrows extensively from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017), to the point where the original project was intended to be a much slower experience, with Sonic able to walk slowly and ride a horse [2]. The game makes no attempt to hide its direct inspiration, so much so that it directly recreates the Blood Moon scene and simply turns it into a Starfall one. The title rips off ideas from all the recent productions, turning them into a crucible with no identity. The general setting is that of Breath of the Wild, with a soundtrack that loosely copies the ethereal piano sound design, while the battles against the Titans are largely inspired by Shadow of the Colossus (2005), with the same sense of gradual scaling.
The combat system is inspired by recent character action games, with a rather surprising emphasis on combos; the density of the puzzles recalls the exploration of Genshin Impact (2020) and the many activities that dot organically the Teyvat map and blend with the environment; there are many borrowings from Neon Genesis Evangelion as well and, above all, Sonic's own games. But this compilation is particularly clumsy. At Gamescom 2022, fans could see that the level design of Cyberspace stages was lifted from previous entries in the series, including Sonic Adventure 2 (2001), Unleashed (2008) and Generation (2011). While Takashi ÄȘzuka cited the corruption of the hero's memories as the reason for this decision [3], it was more likely a lack of resources and time. Two major problems underline the flawed nature of this approach. Firstly, while the layout of the levels is often taken from previous games, the graphics only vary between four environments: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary and a new zone resembling Crisis City. The result is particularly dull and monotonous, with an overly detailed background and obnoxious visual filters designed to mimic computer corruption.
     Inconsistent design between the various activities
More critically, the gameplay of Sonic Frontiers does not fit in with the old designs. The title opts for a jerky gameplay, with an Aim Attack that is only used for direction and never to gain speed, as Sonic is generally always faster when running unaided. This design dichotomy alters the relationship with the S rank: it seems alternately trivial and overly complicated. In reality, if the player chooses not to play according to the rules dictated by the old Sonic level design, and ignores the optimal and natural route in order to concentrate on Sonic's own movement, the S rank is relatively easy to achieve, although it feels meaningless due to the disconnect with the level. The same problem occurs in the overworld. The islands are particularly empty and visually abysmal, leaving the player to rush from objective to objective to solve uninspiring puzzles or complete ill-conceived mini-games. Gathering Kocos for Amy looks inordinately like the shepherd mini-game in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006), while the hacking mini-games are literally lifted from NieR: Automata (2017). The pinball, in which Sonic does not even act as the ball, is astonishing in its unusual mediocrity, as is the final boss in Hard Mode, a particularly poor and unwelcome shoot'em-up sequence.
For a game that emphasises freedom of exploration, Sonic Frontiers feels commanding. The progression from activity to activity is artificial, with the player's attention drawn to the nearest hideous metal structure. When it comes to action, Sonic's and the camera's movements are always fixed by the rails and the level design, which tries to convince the player that the game is still a platformer. It is particularly peculiar that Chaos Island contains so many 2.5D sequences, which are completely at odds with the open-world spirit of the title. With map exploration dependent on completing micro-objectives, exploration is generally linear or bloated with pointless roundabouts. Sonic's stats do little to shake the game out of its formulaic shackles, and any player who decides to spend a little time fishing to raise Sonic's attributes will find the experience ludicrous, as battles are over in an instant, as they are merely designated as health bars to be lowered during the vulnerability cycle. The game does a particularly poor job of communicating its gameplay intentions, and fights suffer from particularly long downtimes to justify the inclusion of chase sequences. The staging is often unreadable and the camera is frequently in awkward places, blocked by the metal limbs of enemies, if not spinning around to the point of causing serious dizziness. The perspective is also generally very poor, and diving attacks are always rather unpleasant to perform.
     The art of false contemplation
Sonic Frontiers also suffers from poor performance, with serious clipping every few metres. Visually, the various islands are homogeneous, with no visual landmarks to give a clear idea of the world's geography. The fourth and fifth islands are, in fact, direct extensions of the first, further reducing the visual variety of the title. The game tries to impose a darker tone on its atmosphere, relying heavily on simple broken piano chords and a melody that repeats after three bars. Unable to find an identity, the game intersperses this pseudo-contemplation with unwarranted jazz melodies for its mini-games and heroic jingles when the player triumphs. The tone of the story follows this inconsistency: Sonic Frontiers multiplies references without purpose, justifying its existence by exploring the lore of the Ancients-Chao in a modulation on the themes of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker (2021) and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000). The dialogues between Sonic and his companions are an opportunity to rehash themes already dealt with in previous games, under the guise of false maturity.
For Dr Eggman, Sonic Frontiers is an opportunity to discover fatherhood through crude cinematics and shallow, flawed writing. It comes as no surprise that Sonic Frontiers takes up the theme of parenthood transcending blood ties, a subject that has been well-explored in popular Japanese fiction since the 2010s, and has recently been exacerbated. However, this addition seems unjustified, given that Eggman is such a passive character. The game seems to be a collection of ideas with no coherence, whether in its game design, narrative or artistic direction. Taking elements that have worked in other cultural productions, the title indulges in a chaotic jumble, defending its own identity through a sort of recapitulation, a moment of reflection in the light of a new maturity.
This was Anno's project with Thrice Upon a Time, bringing an era to a close and ushering in a new one. All the characters of Evangelion were contextualised in a new world, both in the diegesis and in the context of film's production. It was a final attempt to respond to a troubled Japanese youth, battered by the uncertainty of the labour market and the breakdown of traditional interpersonal relationships: it is from this observation and a mature optimism that hope is born. Sonic Frontiers draws no lessons from the past and says nothing. It revels in its own status as a game of transition, with no intention of defining the future direction of the franchise; ironically, Sonic Superstars seems to disavow Frontiers' project by once again taking the golden nostalgia route already exploited by Sonic Mania (2017). This is unfortunate, as the idea of an open-world Sonic game is not necessarily meaningless, but it deserves better than feeble half-measures.
__________
[1] Nicolle Lamerichs, âThe Emotional Realism of Anime: Rewriting Characters and Affective Reception in Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Timeâ, in Mechademia, vol. 15, no. 1, 2022, pp. 81-102.
[2] Yuzuke Takahashi, âTGS2022ăăœăăăŻăăăłăăŁăąăć¶äœè ă€ăłăżăă„ăŒăăŻă©ă·ăăŻïŒăąăăłă«ç¶ă珏äžäžä»ŁăœăăăŻă«èŸŒăăăăæăăšăŻâ, on 4Gamer.net, 16th September 2022.
[3] Zackari Greif, âSonic Team Leader Explains Sonic Frontiers' Use of Old Level Designsâ, on gamerant.com, 30th August 2022, consulted on 16th June 2023.
got to the 2nd island before i decided to pack it in. delighted that this is resonating for so many people but feel pretty confident in saying that i sadly won't be joining you. everything that i enjoy about sonic is absent here, individual ingredients of sonic play scattered haphazardly through an almost disarmingly ugly default unreal engine map, without context or pace or anything to give them life, a series of endlessly repeated chores that offer various flavors of coins that you feed into various flavors of vending machine that dispense cutscenes that, while a step above the standard of the past few games are still lightyears behind the heights of SA2 and Shadow. ian flynn evidently has an earnest fannish enthusiasm for these characters, which is refreshing, but from what i saw of the story (which is not much in fairness) his script very much struggles to keep it's head above water in terms of actual entertainment.
i feel this way not out of mean-spirited hate for sonic and his fandom, but out of love. i'm not the biggest sonic fan in the world but i do genuinely adore the series in the moments i fully resonate with it, and spent a big portion of my last youtube video waxing lyrical about one of the most derided sonic games. that's why the closing of my time on the first island, of following a map marker and feeding coins into amy rose so she could dispense another anonymous cutscene, over and over again, until it felt less like rolling around at the speed of sound and more like clocking into work, felt so genuinely heartbreaking. the sonic i love, his energy, his attitude, his world...none of that is here. all that remains is a hollow facsimile, dispensing flavorless sonic-brand protein paste. playing this genuinely made me feel sad. there's a moment, climbing the big floating tower on the first island, that the game actually felt like a sonic game, chaining together homing attacks and rail grinds and keeping momentum and speed against rapid challenges...and it was all underscored by the same completely utilitarian sad piano track that perpetually haunts the experience. if this was A Level in a sonic game, there would be one of the franchise's signature sick tunes punctuating my ascent, but the open world has taken even this from me...what are we doing here, when we lose even The Tunes to the open world zeitgeist? why should i keep playing when the only moments with any life are those that briefly come close to recapturing the normal experience of playing a level in the adventure-era games? why don't I just boot up an old SA2 level?
i'm just bummed. i really wanted to like this, but it honestly feels like a companion piece in desperation to the last game I reviewed, a final plea to the zeitgeist that the blue blur can still keep up, one that by most accounts is a success, but one that, for me, discards everything i find loveable about the series and replaces it with a frankenstein quilt of contemporary influences that never work together, one that will almost certainly define the direction of the franchise going forward. ultimately, detchibe is right: I love sonic for being new, bold, and weird. and this game is none of those things. it's stale, safe, and depressingly in line with every other game latching onto The Open World as if it is a universal panacea for franchise stagnation.
i should play spark the electric jester.
i feel this way not out of mean-spirited hate for sonic and his fandom, but out of love. i'm not the biggest sonic fan in the world but i do genuinely adore the series in the moments i fully resonate with it, and spent a big portion of my last youtube video waxing lyrical about one of the most derided sonic games. that's why the closing of my time on the first island, of following a map marker and feeding coins into amy rose so she could dispense another anonymous cutscene, over and over again, until it felt less like rolling around at the speed of sound and more like clocking into work, felt so genuinely heartbreaking. the sonic i love, his energy, his attitude, his world...none of that is here. all that remains is a hollow facsimile, dispensing flavorless sonic-brand protein paste. playing this genuinely made me feel sad. there's a moment, climbing the big floating tower on the first island, that the game actually felt like a sonic game, chaining together homing attacks and rail grinds and keeping momentum and speed against rapid challenges...and it was all underscored by the same completely utilitarian sad piano track that perpetually haunts the experience. if this was A Level in a sonic game, there would be one of the franchise's signature sick tunes punctuating my ascent, but the open world has taken even this from me...what are we doing here, when we lose even The Tunes to the open world zeitgeist? why should i keep playing when the only moments with any life are those that briefly come close to recapturing the normal experience of playing a level in the adventure-era games? why don't I just boot up an old SA2 level?
i'm just bummed. i really wanted to like this, but it honestly feels like a companion piece in desperation to the last game I reviewed, a final plea to the zeitgeist that the blue blur can still keep up, one that by most accounts is a success, but one that, for me, discards everything i find loveable about the series and replaces it with a frankenstein quilt of contemporary influences that never work together, one that will almost certainly define the direction of the franchise going forward. ultimately, detchibe is right: I love sonic for being new, bold, and weird. and this game is none of those things. it's stale, safe, and depressingly in line with every other game latching onto The Open World as if it is a universal panacea for franchise stagnation.
i should play spark the electric jester.
Sonic Frontiers is Sonicâs next foray into a new era that will set the template for the Sonic games for the foreseeable future but is it any good? Bottom line, Yes & No, as a person who has played all 3D Sonic Games and a fan of this wonderfully flawed series, Frontiers is very and I mean very flawed I canât deny thereâs a good no, great foundation to plot an amazing game but Frontiers is not that game and thatâs okay, especially since it feels the team who made this game really want it to succeed and be that formula for success, so much so they delayed the game from itâs initial Holiday 2021 release and really listened to player and fan feedback, so while I donât love this game a whole lot, I feel I can appreciate itâs scale and ambition for what it wants to set out to do.
First the plot of this game, without spoiling details I find the plot to be⊠good, not great but a solid romp and return to the more shonen styled Sonic stories. It follows Sonic, Tails and Amy investigating the disappearance of the Chaos Emeralds, they find that itâs on the mysterious Starfall Islands, after they get sucked into a wormhole, Sonic is quickly enwrapped in a Race against time to save his friends and collect the emeralds while a mysterious new girl, named Sage tries to warn him to leave the islands. The plot is good mostly due to the character interactions, I think thatâs mostly what Ian Flynn is great at itâs just fun to see these characters interact, again I gotta keep it a bit vague here but I love while Sonic doesnât go through a major arc, heâs just a static character, his personality inspires those around him in a positive light, in turns it also sorta fixes some of the character issues in the Mainline games that are sorta inFamous in the Sonic community now, I do have a few gripes with the story however, for one i think it relies a bit to much on references in my opinion, like thereâs a few lines in the game that sorta caught me off guard (in a good kind of way) that sorta did shape the world of the game and series upside down but I feel others come off as a bit unnecessary and shoe horned in. My other gripe is that I feel like the twists and such donât really work and feel a bit anticlimactic, again gonna be a little vague here but while the stuff with the âancientsâ and Koco where well done, I didnât really found Sage to be a terribly interesting character and the pay off to her is pretty underwhelming despite there being a solid idea, it just feels rushed, plus it gets so insanely melodramatic at points even for Sonic standards, though the ending itself is well written enough. Overall I found the story while not the best in the series as I think the Adventure Games, Battle, Rush Adventure, both versions of Colours and maybe Black Knight edges out, is a fun time with likeable character that are some of the best in the series, great dialogue and overall a great tone that says prevalent throughout the game, if the twists were better, a bit more well paced, had better voice acting and maybe dialled back a bit on the references and the just talking scenes, I think this could be one of the best in series, but as it is itâs a solid enough story and better than anything in the past decade, so Iâm content with it.
As in terms of Presentation of Frontiers, this is unfortunately where my more mixed thoughts on the game start to pop up, literally i mean because the pop in in this game is absurd, i donât know if this was an [REDACTED] issue or my issues with the presentation can be linked to this but the point is, the Pop in in this game go beyond the standard Open world affair but rather something that is insanely common that it hinders gameplay. I also found the artstyle to be bland and boring, while it looks perfectly fine and i can sorta see what theyâre going for especially with those enemy designs but the actual open zone looks so forgettable and bland for a Sonic game though does look fine in the grand scheme of things, i much prefer how Cyberspace looks, despite the inane reuse of these stage themes i have to admit they havenât looked better before, they look really beautiful especially in the night. One aspect of the game that is a bit mediocre is the voice acting, while i dig Rogerâs more serious direction as Sonic (which is literally Crane from Dying Light) other actors sound incredibly bored especially Sage and Eggman, The music is pretty strong, Iâm Here & the Titan Bosses arenât very good songs in my opinion but Vandalize and One way Dream are incredible tracks, Cyberspace music is great as well though the Open Zone music is a bit forgettable.
But I know what yâall here for, the gameplay and⊠it functions? Frontiers is essentially Sonic Forces but in an Open World, not really a bad thing but i wouldnât say itâs a huge improvement from Forces apart from Controls which feel really nice to play around with especially using the Cyloop, just speeding through these fast lands at rocket speeds, platforming around the world in these weird sprawling sandboxes filled with Sonic iconography while using the drop dash and boosting feels so good. Sonic can use most of his arsenal from the Boost games along with the drop dash from Sonic Mania and the lightspeed dash, Sonic can also level up his speed, defence, ring capacity and power by either collecting fruit or Koco (very slowly might i add), Throughout the Islands you need to collect Memory Tokens to free your friends or talk to them, Portal Gears to Unlock Cyberspace levels, short bitesize 3D or 2D linear stages from previous games and Vault Keys to unlock the 7 Chaos Emeralds as well as Egg Memos, optional Voice recorded notes created by Eggman that expand on the lore of the series. This formula works in my opinion but the issue is, thereâs not much variation, youâre mostly doing the same thing over and over again without much challenge for at least 11 Hours as a hardcore Sonic Fan, especially with the fact that the Islands donât have much variety apart from aesthetics, Thereâs a fishing minigame and a casino gimmick at night and for a few missions thereâs a few timed challenges, but it isnât enough in my opinion and sometimes feel like variety for the sake of variety.
Supposedly the combat and puzzles was supposed to be the big solution to this however while fun, i think both are way too simple and the challenge is essentially nonexistent, especially in terms of combat with by light speed dashing rings or infinitely Cylopping Rings with no penalty, Combat feels it puts above all else spectacle rather than practicality which is shame, because with more challenge and less button mashy gameplay this could very be the best combat in the series, standing next to Heroes, however as it is itâs sorta just⊠there.
Cyberspace is one of the aspects of the game that I feel the most mixed on. While I grew to âlikeâ cyberspace, whenever I was liking the stages, they ended just like Sonic Forces. Thereâs a few lengthy ones sure but they mostly value replay value with getting multiple keys by doing challenges, itâs just the controls are really bad in Cyberspace plus the 4 themes that are reused over and over for all 5 Islands again with level design from better games with better controls and aesthetics makes Cyberspace such a weird aspect for me, they serve as neat little peacebreakers at most and at worst, Sonic Forces 2.
Speaking of the 5 Islands, while i wonât spoil details i found the 4th and 5th Islands to be incredibly disappointing, one of them is insanely short and is basically a story beat island while one is a full fledged island but still has that disappoint aspect, it sorta ruined the game for me since it shows that Sonic games are still falling in the same traps over and over again. This is no more apparent in the polish of the game, the game feels unfinished at points, i already talked about the Pop-In but thereâs a layer of jank in this game despite a delay and 5 year development cycle, animations and textures being incredibly inconsistent, 2D Sections in the Open World feel so jarring and janky whenever they happen, especially in Chaos Island, easily the worst and most janky island in the game and the camera in both Cyberspace and the Open World is awful, i know cameras in 3D Sonic games arenât the best but this is absurdly bad even for those standards, it regularly clips on objects and is way too zoomed out.
I feel the camera issues are at itâs worst with the titan bosses, the minibosses are probably the best part of the game since theyâre challenging while providing a bit of variety to the game, but the Titans while in terms spectacle go so hard with itâs music and designs, functional they feel really jank and way too easy, the final boss is just a shitty QTE, even if you play on hard which i did, itâs still the easiest boss in the game and it really soured the sorta solid ending the game has.
Overall Sonic Frontiers is good, and not much else? You might a 6/10 is a bit too high in your opinion with this mostly negative but thatâs because, this game shows an insane amount promise and when it works, the game is a blast but as i progressed through the game it was doing the same thing over and over again and especially with the 4th and 5th Islands being so disappointing, I canât bring myself to say i love Frontiers, nor i canât say i hate it, itâs just okay. This is the type of game where some people might like it but hate a lot of aspects, and some people might hate this game but like a lot aspects and i think i lie on a middle, though the fact is, despite any opinions on it, everyone agrees thereâs a potential for a great follow up or even for some great DLC, i really hope that the average reviews doesnât mean the gameâs will be scrapped but rather improved upon for a great new sequel, i may seem alone on my stance of this game but i feel Frontiers is comparable to Sonic 1, Sonic Rush or Colours Wii where itâs the exact game we needed at the time and while very, very flawed, the foundation is there for a great sequel. All i can hope is that these new Frontiers, wonât be forgotten.
First the plot of this game, without spoiling details I find the plot to be⊠good, not great but a solid romp and return to the more shonen styled Sonic stories. It follows Sonic, Tails and Amy investigating the disappearance of the Chaos Emeralds, they find that itâs on the mysterious Starfall Islands, after they get sucked into a wormhole, Sonic is quickly enwrapped in a Race against time to save his friends and collect the emeralds while a mysterious new girl, named Sage tries to warn him to leave the islands. The plot is good mostly due to the character interactions, I think thatâs mostly what Ian Flynn is great at itâs just fun to see these characters interact, again I gotta keep it a bit vague here but I love while Sonic doesnât go through a major arc, heâs just a static character, his personality inspires those around him in a positive light, in turns it also sorta fixes some of the character issues in the Mainline games that are sorta inFamous in the Sonic community now, I do have a few gripes with the story however, for one i think it relies a bit to much on references in my opinion, like thereâs a few lines in the game that sorta caught me off guard (in a good kind of way) that sorta did shape the world of the game and series upside down but I feel others come off as a bit unnecessary and shoe horned in. My other gripe is that I feel like the twists and such donât really work and feel a bit anticlimactic, again gonna be a little vague here but while the stuff with the âancientsâ and Koco where well done, I didnât really found Sage to be a terribly interesting character and the pay off to her is pretty underwhelming despite there being a solid idea, it just feels rushed, plus it gets so insanely melodramatic at points even for Sonic standards, though the ending itself is well written enough. Overall I found the story while not the best in the series as I think the Adventure Games, Battle, Rush Adventure, both versions of Colours and maybe Black Knight edges out, is a fun time with likeable character that are some of the best in the series, great dialogue and overall a great tone that says prevalent throughout the game, if the twists were better, a bit more well paced, had better voice acting and maybe dialled back a bit on the references and the just talking scenes, I think this could be one of the best in series, but as it is itâs a solid enough story and better than anything in the past decade, so Iâm content with it.
As in terms of Presentation of Frontiers, this is unfortunately where my more mixed thoughts on the game start to pop up, literally i mean because the pop in in this game is absurd, i donât know if this was an [REDACTED] issue or my issues with the presentation can be linked to this but the point is, the Pop in in this game go beyond the standard Open world affair but rather something that is insanely common that it hinders gameplay. I also found the artstyle to be bland and boring, while it looks perfectly fine and i can sorta see what theyâre going for especially with those enemy designs but the actual open zone looks so forgettable and bland for a Sonic game though does look fine in the grand scheme of things, i much prefer how Cyberspace looks, despite the inane reuse of these stage themes i have to admit they havenât looked better before, they look really beautiful especially in the night. One aspect of the game that is a bit mediocre is the voice acting, while i dig Rogerâs more serious direction as Sonic (which is literally Crane from Dying Light) other actors sound incredibly bored especially Sage and Eggman, The music is pretty strong, Iâm Here & the Titan Bosses arenât very good songs in my opinion but Vandalize and One way Dream are incredible tracks, Cyberspace music is great as well though the Open Zone music is a bit forgettable.
But I know what yâall here for, the gameplay and⊠it functions? Frontiers is essentially Sonic Forces but in an Open World, not really a bad thing but i wouldnât say itâs a huge improvement from Forces apart from Controls which feel really nice to play around with especially using the Cyloop, just speeding through these fast lands at rocket speeds, platforming around the world in these weird sprawling sandboxes filled with Sonic iconography while using the drop dash and boosting feels so good. Sonic can use most of his arsenal from the Boost games along with the drop dash from Sonic Mania and the lightspeed dash, Sonic can also level up his speed, defence, ring capacity and power by either collecting fruit or Koco (very slowly might i add), Throughout the Islands you need to collect Memory Tokens to free your friends or talk to them, Portal Gears to Unlock Cyberspace levels, short bitesize 3D or 2D linear stages from previous games and Vault Keys to unlock the 7 Chaos Emeralds as well as Egg Memos, optional Voice recorded notes created by Eggman that expand on the lore of the series. This formula works in my opinion but the issue is, thereâs not much variation, youâre mostly doing the same thing over and over again without much challenge for at least 11 Hours as a hardcore Sonic Fan, especially with the fact that the Islands donât have much variety apart from aesthetics, Thereâs a fishing minigame and a casino gimmick at night and for a few missions thereâs a few timed challenges, but it isnât enough in my opinion and sometimes feel like variety for the sake of variety.
Supposedly the combat and puzzles was supposed to be the big solution to this however while fun, i think both are way too simple and the challenge is essentially nonexistent, especially in terms of combat with by light speed dashing rings or infinitely Cylopping Rings with no penalty, Combat feels it puts above all else spectacle rather than practicality which is shame, because with more challenge and less button mashy gameplay this could very be the best combat in the series, standing next to Heroes, however as it is itâs sorta just⊠there.
Cyberspace is one of the aspects of the game that I feel the most mixed on. While I grew to âlikeâ cyberspace, whenever I was liking the stages, they ended just like Sonic Forces. Thereâs a few lengthy ones sure but they mostly value replay value with getting multiple keys by doing challenges, itâs just the controls are really bad in Cyberspace plus the 4 themes that are reused over and over for all 5 Islands again with level design from better games with better controls and aesthetics makes Cyberspace such a weird aspect for me, they serve as neat little peacebreakers at most and at worst, Sonic Forces 2.
Speaking of the 5 Islands, while i wonât spoil details i found the 4th and 5th Islands to be incredibly disappointing, one of them is insanely short and is basically a story beat island while one is a full fledged island but still has that disappoint aspect, it sorta ruined the game for me since it shows that Sonic games are still falling in the same traps over and over again. This is no more apparent in the polish of the game, the game feels unfinished at points, i already talked about the Pop-In but thereâs a layer of jank in this game despite a delay and 5 year development cycle, animations and textures being incredibly inconsistent, 2D Sections in the Open World feel so jarring and janky whenever they happen, especially in Chaos Island, easily the worst and most janky island in the game and the camera in both Cyberspace and the Open World is awful, i know cameras in 3D Sonic games arenât the best but this is absurdly bad even for those standards, it regularly clips on objects and is way too zoomed out.
I feel the camera issues are at itâs worst with the titan bosses, the minibosses are probably the best part of the game since theyâre challenging while providing a bit of variety to the game, but the Titans while in terms spectacle go so hard with itâs music and designs, functional they feel really jank and way too easy, the final boss is just a shitty QTE, even if you play on hard which i did, itâs still the easiest boss in the game and it really soured the sorta solid ending the game has.
Overall Sonic Frontiers is good, and not much else? You might a 6/10 is a bit too high in your opinion with this mostly negative but thatâs because, this game shows an insane amount promise and when it works, the game is a blast but as i progressed through the game it was doing the same thing over and over again and especially with the 4th and 5th Islands being so disappointing, I canât bring myself to say i love Frontiers, nor i canât say i hate it, itâs just okay. This is the type of game where some people might like it but hate a lot of aspects, and some people might hate this game but like a lot aspects and i think i lie on a middle, though the fact is, despite any opinions on it, everyone agrees thereâs a potential for a great follow up or even for some great DLC, i really hope that the average reviews doesnât mean the gameâs will be scrapped but rather improved upon for a great new sequel, i may seem alone on my stance of this game but i feel Frontiers is comparable to Sonic 1, Sonic Rush or Colours Wii where itâs the exact game we needed at the time and while very, very flawed, the foundation is there for a great sequel. All i can hope is that these new Frontiers, wonât be forgotten.
I trust in the plan
Edit: I was right to trust it
Edit: I was right to trust it
This is my fucking jam!
Haters mad I can experience joy and wonder
Pra quem acompanhou minha jornada atĂ© aqui, pode ser um susto ver um 10 pra Sonic 3D, mas acho que essa Ă© a epitome da consciĂȘncia vinda da Sonic Team como dev e pra Sonic como franquia. Se sempre digo que Sonic internaliza pra si todas as tendĂȘncias de mercado de maneira que consegue sempre traduzir Sonic pra tal, e jogos como Black Knight, Unleashed e Colors corroboram para a materialidade de meu argumento.
Por vezes saem jogos desastrosos, ou grandes jogos (Sim, Sonic Adventure 2) mas sempre tentando emplacar Sonic com algo diferente, isso faz parte do DNA da franquia. Com Frontiers não seria diferente, aonde o ouriço vai ser transportado por mundo aberto (ou seria os Hub World dando certo?) que tinha tudo pra ser entediante, né?
Mas Frontiers acerta em cheio, um jogo que seu objetivo principal Ă© a exploração, o mundo aberto toma sua atenção de assalto, com elementos de collectathon, o jogo se segura principalmente no seu Ămpeto em explorar cara canto do mapa pra conseguir um numero X de itens pra avançar na historia, o titulo se mostra competente em tudo que tenta executar.
Ă um jogo cheio de tropeços, de fases repetitivas atĂ© o numero obsceno de itens necessĂĄrios para avançar no jogo, mas existem contornos e compensaçÔes: As sessĂ”es no cyberespaço usa o setting de cenĂĄrios anteriores? Elas sĂŁo curtas o suficiente pra nĂŁo serem problemas. VocĂȘ precisa de 150 item pra completar as historia secundarias? vocĂȘ pode comprar tudo nos portais de pesca.
EntĂŁo assim se dĂĄ o loop de gameplay de Frontiers, um jogo de zona aberta super satisfatĂłrio e mesmo que a exploração nĂŁo seja tua praia, o jogo te estende a mĂŁo e facilita as coisas. Mas Ă© engraçado pensar que Sonic realmente internaliza tendĂȘncias de mercado e no caso de Frontiers, ele nĂŁo sĂł pega coisas como o mundo aberto, mas tambĂ©m Ă© um jogo com uma narrativa sĂłbria e principalmente vem trabalhar os personagens e o prĂłprio Sonic de forma que eu ainda nĂŁo tinha visto na franquia: PersistĂȘncia? Amor? SĂndrome de impostor? tem tudo isso e mais um pouco, todos os bonecos sĂŁo humanizados em algum nĂvel.
E falar sobre humanidade Ă© me fazer lembrar da boss fight final desse jogo, que alĂ©m de ser algo totalmente fora de tom pra Sonic, Ă© super corajosa em estĂĄ presa na dificuldade difĂcil, o que... talvez tenha me surpreendido, tanto na sua apresentação quanto na execução, e nesse tĂłpico eu nĂŁo me prologarei, pois Ă© o tipo de coisa que Ă© especial o quanto menos vocĂȘ saber.
"Abandone a vida que vocĂȘ conhecia antes
Veja um novo mundo pelo qual vale a pena lutar
E ache a verdade de quem vocĂȘ deve se tornar
Um outro caminho que deve trilhar"
Em I'm Here, talvez tenhamos o que mais resume Sonic como franquia e Frontiers como jogo. Tendo em mente que Sonic se perde em sua essĂȘncia no que vem se chamar de Meta Era (jogos que saĂram de 2010 pra frente) que principalmente vinha com a ideia de emular outros jogos no mercado (vide Lost Worlds soar muito como Mario Galaxy) acabam saindo jogos ruins ou medĂocres, e o problema nĂŁo mora ai, mas em que Sonic ainda nĂŁo tinha se encontrado. Se Frontiers Ă© aonde Sonic quer ficar, eu estou totalmente vendido, eu aceito o que vier, em uma possĂvel continuação dessa formula sendo melhor polida, teremos entĂŁo um grande jogo em si (nĂŁo apenas um bom Sonic).
No mais, Ă© o jogo mais ambicioso da Sonic Team, aonde ela aposta as fichas e acerta em cheio, e por mais que seja um jogo que nĂŁo se venda bem em trailers ou na primeira hora de jogo, vale a pena dar uma chance, Ă© um jogo cheio de alma, e isso Ă© o que faz Sonic especial.
Por vezes saem jogos desastrosos, ou grandes jogos (Sim, Sonic Adventure 2) mas sempre tentando emplacar Sonic com algo diferente, isso faz parte do DNA da franquia. Com Frontiers não seria diferente, aonde o ouriço vai ser transportado por mundo aberto (ou seria os Hub World dando certo?) que tinha tudo pra ser entediante, né?
Mas Frontiers acerta em cheio, um jogo que seu objetivo principal Ă© a exploração, o mundo aberto toma sua atenção de assalto, com elementos de collectathon, o jogo se segura principalmente no seu Ămpeto em explorar cara canto do mapa pra conseguir um numero X de itens pra avançar na historia, o titulo se mostra competente em tudo que tenta executar.
Ă um jogo cheio de tropeços, de fases repetitivas atĂ© o numero obsceno de itens necessĂĄrios para avançar no jogo, mas existem contornos e compensaçÔes: As sessĂ”es no cyberespaço usa o setting de cenĂĄrios anteriores? Elas sĂŁo curtas o suficiente pra nĂŁo serem problemas. VocĂȘ precisa de 150 item pra completar as historia secundarias? vocĂȘ pode comprar tudo nos portais de pesca.
EntĂŁo assim se dĂĄ o loop de gameplay de Frontiers, um jogo de zona aberta super satisfatĂłrio e mesmo que a exploração nĂŁo seja tua praia, o jogo te estende a mĂŁo e facilita as coisas. Mas Ă© engraçado pensar que Sonic realmente internaliza tendĂȘncias de mercado e no caso de Frontiers, ele nĂŁo sĂł pega coisas como o mundo aberto, mas tambĂ©m Ă© um jogo com uma narrativa sĂłbria e principalmente vem trabalhar os personagens e o prĂłprio Sonic de forma que eu ainda nĂŁo tinha visto na franquia: PersistĂȘncia? Amor? SĂndrome de impostor? tem tudo isso e mais um pouco, todos os bonecos sĂŁo humanizados em algum nĂvel.
E falar sobre humanidade Ă© me fazer lembrar da boss fight final desse jogo, que alĂ©m de ser algo totalmente fora de tom pra Sonic, Ă© super corajosa em estĂĄ presa na dificuldade difĂcil, o que... talvez tenha me surpreendido, tanto na sua apresentação quanto na execução, e nesse tĂłpico eu nĂŁo me prologarei, pois Ă© o tipo de coisa que Ă© especial o quanto menos vocĂȘ saber.
"Abandone a vida que vocĂȘ conhecia antes
Veja um novo mundo pelo qual vale a pena lutar
E ache a verdade de quem vocĂȘ deve se tornar
Um outro caminho que deve trilhar"
Em I'm Here, talvez tenhamos o que mais resume Sonic como franquia e Frontiers como jogo. Tendo em mente que Sonic se perde em sua essĂȘncia no que vem se chamar de Meta Era (jogos que saĂram de 2010 pra frente) que principalmente vinha com a ideia de emular outros jogos no mercado (vide Lost Worlds soar muito como Mario Galaxy) acabam saindo jogos ruins ou medĂocres, e o problema nĂŁo mora ai, mas em que Sonic ainda nĂŁo tinha se encontrado. Se Frontiers Ă© aonde Sonic quer ficar, eu estou totalmente vendido, eu aceito o que vier, em uma possĂvel continuação dessa formula sendo melhor polida, teremos entĂŁo um grande jogo em si (nĂŁo apenas um bom Sonic).
No mais, Ă© o jogo mais ambicioso da Sonic Team, aonde ela aposta as fichas e acerta em cheio, e por mais que seja um jogo que nĂŁo se venda bem em trailers ou na primeira hora de jogo, vale a pena dar uma chance, Ă© um jogo cheio de alma, e isso Ă© o que faz Sonic especial.
This little blue critter's franchise sure has had a rough journey. While the new Mario movie likely won't be a masterpiece, the trailers suggest an air of polish and prestige, to match a fairly solid run of games. All the while the Sonic movie might best be remembered for a botched first draft of the character ("uuum.. meow?") rushed back into post production. As someone who grew up with Sonic and not Mario, it's quite devastating to see the hedgehog undergo such an identity crisis. In fairness, the last game I completed was Sonic Heroes, but I've seen enough of the werewolf Sonic and gun-tootin' Shadow games to know things got rough early on.
Frontiers feels like Sega and Team Sonic setting out to reclaim some relevance and insist to be taken seriously once again. The game demonstrates this firstly through reinvention of past "classics" - you'll see the familiar Chemical Plant and Green Hill zones plus gameplay of Sonic 3D, Spinball and even fishing with Big the Cat.
The rest of the game borrows from elsewhere, literally any actual classic game is up for grabs: Zelda BOTW, Shadow of the Colossus (mixed with a bit of Neon Genesis Evangeleon) and even Death Stranding. Unsurprisingly, this creates a mixed atmosphere and, more often than not, clashes with the goofy-ass characters. The Sonic 'content' itself feels rather stale against its mish-mash of a backdrop: the voice acting now feels tired and without much conviction; the random platforms that render delayed into the map are repetitive and barely rewarding; the puzzle segments are just as mundane.
The main strength I reckon would be the boss battles, as the gigantic mecha demons each have specific ways of being taken down, whether its grinding along 'tail-trails' in the air or in a sort-of wrestling ring scenario. It's rather telling though when the game's other main strength is its mini levels that throwback to those 2D halcyon days.
It's a mess but undoubtedly an ambitious one. Frontiers may even be considered a step in the right direction, or at least a better one than before. But fast though the little guy can run, Sonic will still need to work to keep up with his Nintendo contemporaries.
Frontiers feels like Sega and Team Sonic setting out to reclaim some relevance and insist to be taken seriously once again. The game demonstrates this firstly through reinvention of past "classics" - you'll see the familiar Chemical Plant and Green Hill zones plus gameplay of Sonic 3D, Spinball and even fishing with Big the Cat.
The rest of the game borrows from elsewhere, literally any actual classic game is up for grabs: Zelda BOTW, Shadow of the Colossus (mixed with a bit of Neon Genesis Evangeleon) and even Death Stranding. Unsurprisingly, this creates a mixed atmosphere and, more often than not, clashes with the goofy-ass characters. The Sonic 'content' itself feels rather stale against its mish-mash of a backdrop: the voice acting now feels tired and without much conviction; the random platforms that render delayed into the map are repetitive and barely rewarding; the puzzle segments are just as mundane.
The main strength I reckon would be the boss battles, as the gigantic mecha demons each have specific ways of being taken down, whether its grinding along 'tail-trails' in the air or in a sort-of wrestling ring scenario. It's rather telling though when the game's other main strength is its mini levels that throwback to those 2D halcyon days.
It's a mess but undoubtedly an ambitious one. Frontiers may even be considered a step in the right direction, or at least a better one than before. But fast though the little guy can run, Sonic will still need to work to keep up with his Nintendo contemporaries.
Alright letâs do this one more time.
Sonic Frontiers is a game that I have played and spoken about as a total of 3 times on here as of now, 4 if you count the preview I played in London, and itâs a game that I have no strong opinions on one way or the other. I donât really hate Sonic Frontiers, but I am not really a fan of it either? Itâs a very weird game that for some reason is called the pinnacle of Sonic even at release. It baffles me, I wonât judge but Iâm confused at this games reception, even more so than now with this latest updates. I was originally planning on doing a re-review of the entire game alongside talking about the new updates, but I feel thereâs first of all no need, second I think it could make a good video and lastly, I donât have the energy to re review a game that I donât have much of a stance on. Anyway, why am I talking about these updates?
Sonic Frontiers is the first sonic game to feature free content updates, 3 major updates to be exact, adding new features, modes, options and for the last update, an entire new story. Even as someone who didnât really care about Frontiers, this intrigued me, I donât know if i thought if it would fix the game but at least I could maybe, maybe see what all the hype was about. The answer is more complicated then I could imagine, but unfortunately, Iâm leaning towards a negative side. This is gonna be a long, negative ass review of Frontiers after launch, Iâm tired.
Update 1: Sights, Sound, and Speedymcfly!!!
Update 1 is what Is the update in my opinion, that put stuff that was probably supposed to be in the game at launch into it, and it does it job, fine. This right here is a fine update. The features in this update are quite cool but needed a bit more time in the oven, something we will see later on especially. First, thereâs a new jukebox mode that contains songs from across the series, I like this, as someone who doesnât really care about Frontiers music, itâs nice to get songs that I actually like and can listen to while running around at the literal speed of sound, getting them is fun as you need to think out of the box to get some of the better song choices, usually vocal songs, while others are easy to find. You also have a photo mode, which isnât very good in my opinion, itâs feels so limited since you canât even use it in cyberspace, it only has a limited pool of filters and, nothing else. No poseâs, stickers, other unique filters or anything else, itâs just serviceable.
The other two modes are the ones that add, like, actual replay value to Frontiers. In the base game, there was nothing of the sort other than Arcade Mode where you can replay Cyberspace, which was nice if you wanted a higher rank but in terms of going back to the game, that was it. There was nothing to really go back on and improve on, there was no ranking system in combat, no super sonic to mess with, no post game side objectives or anything. So adding these where a welcome addition, itâs fine. Again I have to stress this is a fine update, but itâs nothing that really boosted my enjoyment on the game as much as I wanted it, we got a boss rush and egg shuttle which is nice. Sorry for the short and scattershot thoughts but thereâs not really much to say on this update, it adds more meat to Frontiers which is a good thing but other than that, nothing really outstanding or that great honestly.
(Thereâs also extreme mode which I havenât unlocked but from I heard itâs quite bad despite the few neat additions it adds)
Update 2: Sonicâs birthday bash (He died when he turned 15! F in the chat đ)
Update 2 was the update that I kinda brushed over, something that I didnât really know what to expect, and it surprised me and how good it was, thereâs even some moments of where I thought, okay, I kinda get it now. Not to the point where I would call it my favourite sonic game, but instead of me not really coming back to it unless I get the PC Version and mod it, itâs a game that I could come back to if Iâm feeling up for it.
Update 2 shakes up a lot of things, the birthday stuff is quite superfluous, itâs nothing then a cosmetic thing which I donât really care about. But everything in this update doesnât miss, Iâm serious, nearly aspect while could have done with some work, enhances the game. First, a very small but incredibly helpful thing is that you can keep your speed while jumping, this is such a small but wonderful fix as it keeps the flow of the game instead being kinda awkward. What this update adds are new action chain challenges, and these are really great, essentially you need to go around the map collecting chains, which you can do my homing attacking on stuff, rail grinding etc, all while collecting orbs to multiple your score. This is fun because itâs using Frontiers whack ass world design to its benefit whole providing a fun challenge, itâs like, actual side content. And what you get for the reward is so great, the spin dash. Around this time Khisimoto was taking in feedback from the community, and for better or worse, this is one of the things added. The Spin dash here isnât really a Spin dash per say more like a Spin Boost, but as someone who enjoyed using the drop dash, this is sorta a game changer to Frontiers movement and how Iâd approach it.
Thereâs also some fun new challenging Koco stuff that increase your boost meter and a new game plus mode, while it sadly doesnât increase the difficulty, but I wouldnât say itâs knock on adding this since most new game plus games doesnât even do this, but itâs something that could have made it gone the extra mile. So on the whole, update 2 boosts my enjoyment of Frontiers considerable, letâs hope update 3 can stick the landing.
Update 3: The Final Animal Crossing Horizon
What the hell
Update 3, kinda broke me, itâs everything that i love and hate about Frontiers combined into a mess. A mess that I canât for the life of me still understand the reception of. Update 3 was the big one, the first time multiple playable character were in a 3D Sonic game since Sonic Forces! But more seriously since 06 and maybe even Black Knight if youâre insane like me. This a big deal, along with promising to fix Frontiers polarising ending.
See, I didnât mention this in my review due to being spoiler free, but Frontiers final boss is both baffling and underwhelming, providing no satisfying challenge either being easy with a QTE, or just pure nightmare fuel with the shooter thing, along with the big fucking purple moon named THE END spouting complete and utter nonsense that was not built up in a satisfying and compelling way in a story thatâs too subtle. The final horizon aims to fix this ending both narratively and mechanically. I say aim because they completely missed the fucking target.
Good lord, this was both innanely frustrating, boring and depressing. I can imagine due to Kishimoto trying to listen to all the feedback heâs gotten on Twitter, he tried his damn best to please everyone in such a limited time lot of 2 months and has only divided people on this far even further on this game.
How this works and is integrated into the game feels quite disconnected, instead of outright replacing it, itâs a new alternate timeline/âWhat ifâ where Sonic uses his cyber corruption to defeat the End, all while his amigos collect the Chaos Emeralds.
In terms of story, uh this was quite bad! Thereâs a lot of great moments, mostly in the final boss and ending but everything else is just what I hate about Frontiers plot, itâs so boring! Like, the dialogue has had a complete nose dive in quality in my opinion. A lot of the moment to moment dialogue just doesnât feel natural, the voice acting is just not there for most of the characters except for Roger, the rest of the characters sound bored out of their mind. The dialogue is the worse of Ian Flynn in my opinion, while I like his work in some cases, here I couldnât vibe with it. Thereâs a ton of references that donât gel with the general tone and atmosphere at hand along with making a lot of unnecessary retcons to the game and lore, some are good, most of them⊠Yikes. They reiterate the character arcs in the game and retcon a ton of things. So now Big is a hallucination of Sonic (Even though he showed up in the Prologue) and Sonic uses the power of cyberspace to create all the whack ass shit in the Starfall Islands, what now? Can Cyberspace pretend to be a bar of soap and give them all the slip? Itâs just silly. But the revised slow story is the least of my problems.
Okay, letâs talk about what I like. Cyberspace is pretty cool! It still sorta reuses stages but itâs fun! The final boss while not without its flaws, itâs good! Has a ton of hype moments as well especially with that new shiny form we get a split second of. Very nice! Whatâs not nice however is the new actual form we play is just Super Sonic, but with blue eyes! Very not nice! The new songs are pretty good! And uh⊠I like how the trial areas look!
Iâm gonna be honest guys, this update made be tired of a lot things both in the update and just on the whole, the only thing keeping me sane was booting up a couple rounds of F-Zero 99, because my god. This broke me.
The two fatal flaws of the update are first, the new characters. They are bad! The issue with them is that at their core theyâre fine, but they just have these little quirks that annoy you.
-Amy is arguably the best character here, her moveset is completely comprised of cards, not her actually weapon she uses. Itâs completely silly given how sheâs smacking people with cards, riding a motorcycle with cards and gliding with cards and the Hammer gets, is a parry. I donât know who to blame for this, but this feels like such a baffling decision. Despite this, I feel Amy is semi fun to play as, which can be said for all the characters, sheâs the only one that doesnât adversely have anything wrong with her
-What did they do to my boy Knuckles. Knuckles is one of my favourite sonic characters both to play as and narratively and in both sides they did him so dirty, they kinda reverted him back to a meathead now which is disappointing. But what they did do to him in terms of gameplay??? Itâs not terrible, but his glide has this weird delay that still keeps your speed, not only does this not make sense as Amy has her glide completely none delay. Because of this and i shit you not, you get a reboot of the infinite jump glitch from Rise of Lyric. Aside from this, his climbing doesnât feel natural or fun to use, and is too finicky.
-Tails is in the middle of this, to me he was the least fun character to use. His flying power is only increases your height vertically for a limited time and then you can move around for a limited time. This is understandable to limit how broken flying can be. But I donât know, itâs not really fun to use, and itâs still kinda broken, 06 at least had the right idea of capping it vertically at a certain point, in Frontiers it feels more like an glorified mid air jump rather than flying, Iâm harping on this because Tails isnât much of a very interesting character to play as, he can throw wrenchâs like a Hammer Bro, heâs packing heat like Shadow, and thatâs about it!
The biggest issue with all these characters is that they start you off at square one, youâve got level 1 speed, defence and absolute no stats, not even the cyloop. You essentially have to do a whole gameâs worth of upgrading on one Island. I do like the idea of finding experience points through the Koco but itâs just not fun to do this, especially given how in the night sections while thereâs a comet storm, the game showers you with Koco and such, so itâs pointless. What all 3 characters also suck at is combat, they are not built for combat, Tails especially given how he doesnât even have the homing attack. They canât go combo mad on the enemies and only have a dinky 3 hit combo along with maybe an additional attack in youâre lucky. I donât know if this was an intentional but you have to just, waddle away when you see an enemy. Itâs overall overwhelming disappointing that the thing that the update was advertised on is bad, but is the other stuff go-
No, not at all.
How this update is structured is like a whole new island, it reminds me of Cannons Core or End of the world but instead of being a perfectly lengthy, challenging final level putting what youâve learned throughout the game to the ultimate test. Itâs drawn out to all hell. Of course, I canât bring up this update without the challenge increase, I played on Normal and have heard horror stories of what it is on Hard and Extreme, and to me, itâs not designed very interestingly.
I love me a hard experience, especially for a platformer, but you have to understand the mechanics of the game and making that challenge satisfying around it, hell weâve seen it done well in this game with the new Koco and Action chain challenges So what happened here? Iâll give props for less automation and such but whenever thereâs fair and hard platforming challenge, thereâs just double the amount of dull, Kazio little Timmy ass level. It feels like getting it over Sonic edition, especially with those towers, which unlike Rhea (my favourite part of the game) donât have any pick me ups, if you mess up, itâs back to the beginning! And like, for some games like the 3D Mario games, you signed up for that shit since itâs the end of the game, you know thatâs youâre getting into a tough as nails challenge thatâs kinda unfair. But with this, I donât get why itâs like this, again itâs not that I find it being hard is a bad thing, far from it! Especially as someone who thought Frontiers was piss easy. But here, Frontiers has no difficultly curve, so itâs 0 to 100 so quickly.
Imagine in Sonic Heroes, you played through Team Rose, and then for the final stage you had super hard mode thrown onto you, thatâs what the final horizon is. Itâs not even like the Adventure Packs from Unleashed, since there itâs at least linear stuff that you can quickly rebound from when you fail through checkpoints, the incentive for all of these are rankings, which Frontiers in the Open Zone, does not have. So youâre left with an unsatisfactory challenge that isnât fun.
It also just has that artificial difficulty pumped to it, whenever you do the trials, your back to square one in terms of boss fights, instead of making the boss rush harder, they just make you have none of the stuff youâve worked hard on. In the final boss, parrying actually have timing now, which the game was not built for a perfect parry like this and they just, throw it on you.
Let be clear, when the final
Horizon is good, itâs some of the best stuff in Frontiers (Which is Generations at its worst but whatever) but you have to trudge through just a lot of things that I donât care for in this update. Iâll give props for being so ambitious with so many new assets and such, but like, my biggest thing with this account and whole review is how sometimes, ambition is the cause of downfall.
I would have much preferred just having the character playable in their own, self contained campaigns (Like you canât even play as them outside of the DLC area, which was disappointing at first but seeing how they play Iâm kinda glad lol), covering the events we only hear of in the main story, then, pull the end of the world stuff when Sonic gets corrupted at the end of Rhea, maybe use the Tower design or the new Cyberspace stages or something and then keep Ouranous structurally the same from the base game, then finally using the new final boss. That would have easily just make Frontiers slightly edge out (Maybe along with distinct themes for the last two islands as well but I can be too greedy), because as the Final Horizon, itâs mid⊠Not awful, but not peak either
Conclusion, Bros, I am tired
So, Sonic Frontiers is finally in complete open beta! It finally did it! But in all seriousness, this solidified my thoughts on Frontiers and new Sonic stuff as a whole, thereâs a lot of great ideas here and concepts, but thereâs always a catch and in this case, thereâs too many to list . Every damn thing, this game, Sonic Origins, Sonic Prime, the movies, the comics nearly everything post Generations has this rule and itâs disappointing to see Sonic fall into the same things and fans kinda just, eat it up.
Let me clear, I donât wanna be the fun police like a lot of Sonic detractors are who arenât even fans of the franchise yet still check it out knowing theyâll dislike like it. I do not want to ridicule the franchise, I want to see it improve, but to do that, we need to acknowledge its flaws, itâs shortcomings yet celebrate when itâs gets something right. You can love something so much, if you think Frontiers is the peakest of fiction, then do! I am not stopping you to think that as someone whose opinions has flunacted in this game more than the UKâs economy. But understand that some of this is flawed in my and many others eyes and can do better, and critique has improved this game! Look at Update 2 and parts of Update 3! Without fan feedback, we wouldnât have gotten the Spin Dash or New Game Plus! When a new game comes out, I will bet that the issues I have with this entire game, will hopefully be fixed and can be something that genuinely stand as one of my favourite Sonic games.
But as it is, I am tired. Maybe Superstars will bring me out of being tired, but Iâm kinda tired of the series new stuff while semi satisfying me still falling to the same pitfalls killing the franchise, only this time people are less outspoken towards it. I will always cherish everything in the past, but as for the future, it looks bright, and itâs gonna be great for most, but I need to rest damnit.
Sonic Frontiers is a game that I have played and spoken about as a total of 3 times on here as of now, 4 if you count the preview I played in London, and itâs a game that I have no strong opinions on one way or the other. I donât really hate Sonic Frontiers, but I am not really a fan of it either? Itâs a very weird game that for some reason is called the pinnacle of Sonic even at release. It baffles me, I wonât judge but Iâm confused at this games reception, even more so than now with this latest updates. I was originally planning on doing a re-review of the entire game alongside talking about the new updates, but I feel thereâs first of all no need, second I think it could make a good video and lastly, I donât have the energy to re review a game that I donât have much of a stance on. Anyway, why am I talking about these updates?
Sonic Frontiers is the first sonic game to feature free content updates, 3 major updates to be exact, adding new features, modes, options and for the last update, an entire new story. Even as someone who didnât really care about Frontiers, this intrigued me, I donât know if i thought if it would fix the game but at least I could maybe, maybe see what all the hype was about. The answer is more complicated then I could imagine, but unfortunately, Iâm leaning towards a negative side. This is gonna be a long, negative ass review of Frontiers after launch, Iâm tired.
Update 1: Sights, Sound, and Speedymcfly!!!
Update 1 is what Is the update in my opinion, that put stuff that was probably supposed to be in the game at launch into it, and it does it job, fine. This right here is a fine update. The features in this update are quite cool but needed a bit more time in the oven, something we will see later on especially. First, thereâs a new jukebox mode that contains songs from across the series, I like this, as someone who doesnât really care about Frontiers music, itâs nice to get songs that I actually like and can listen to while running around at the literal speed of sound, getting them is fun as you need to think out of the box to get some of the better song choices, usually vocal songs, while others are easy to find. You also have a photo mode, which isnât very good in my opinion, itâs feels so limited since you canât even use it in cyberspace, it only has a limited pool of filters and, nothing else. No poseâs, stickers, other unique filters or anything else, itâs just serviceable.
The other two modes are the ones that add, like, actual replay value to Frontiers. In the base game, there was nothing of the sort other than Arcade Mode where you can replay Cyberspace, which was nice if you wanted a higher rank but in terms of going back to the game, that was it. There was nothing to really go back on and improve on, there was no ranking system in combat, no super sonic to mess with, no post game side objectives or anything. So adding these where a welcome addition, itâs fine. Again I have to stress this is a fine update, but itâs nothing that really boosted my enjoyment on the game as much as I wanted it, we got a boss rush and egg shuttle which is nice. Sorry for the short and scattershot thoughts but thereâs not really much to say on this update, it adds more meat to Frontiers which is a good thing but other than that, nothing really outstanding or that great honestly.
(Thereâs also extreme mode which I havenât unlocked but from I heard itâs quite bad despite the few neat additions it adds)
Update 2: Sonicâs birthday bash (He died when he turned 15! F in the chat đ)
Update 2 was the update that I kinda brushed over, something that I didnât really know what to expect, and it surprised me and how good it was, thereâs even some moments of where I thought, okay, I kinda get it now. Not to the point where I would call it my favourite sonic game, but instead of me not really coming back to it unless I get the PC Version and mod it, itâs a game that I could come back to if Iâm feeling up for it.
Update 2 shakes up a lot of things, the birthday stuff is quite superfluous, itâs nothing then a cosmetic thing which I donât really care about. But everything in this update doesnât miss, Iâm serious, nearly aspect while could have done with some work, enhances the game. First, a very small but incredibly helpful thing is that you can keep your speed while jumping, this is such a small but wonderful fix as it keeps the flow of the game instead being kinda awkward. What this update adds are new action chain challenges, and these are really great, essentially you need to go around the map collecting chains, which you can do my homing attacking on stuff, rail grinding etc, all while collecting orbs to multiple your score. This is fun because itâs using Frontiers whack ass world design to its benefit whole providing a fun challenge, itâs like, actual side content. And what you get for the reward is so great, the spin dash. Around this time Khisimoto was taking in feedback from the community, and for better or worse, this is one of the things added. The Spin dash here isnât really a Spin dash per say more like a Spin Boost, but as someone who enjoyed using the drop dash, this is sorta a game changer to Frontiers movement and how Iâd approach it.
Thereâs also some fun new challenging Koco stuff that increase your boost meter and a new game plus mode, while it sadly doesnât increase the difficulty, but I wouldnât say itâs knock on adding this since most new game plus games doesnât even do this, but itâs something that could have made it gone the extra mile. So on the whole, update 2 boosts my enjoyment of Frontiers considerable, letâs hope update 3 can stick the landing.
Update 3: The Final Animal Crossing Horizon
What the hell
Update 3, kinda broke me, itâs everything that i love and hate about Frontiers combined into a mess. A mess that I canât for the life of me still understand the reception of. Update 3 was the big one, the first time multiple playable character were in a 3D Sonic game since Sonic Forces! But more seriously since 06 and maybe even Black Knight if youâre insane like me. This a big deal, along with promising to fix Frontiers polarising ending.
See, I didnât mention this in my review due to being spoiler free, but Frontiers final boss is both baffling and underwhelming, providing no satisfying challenge either being easy with a QTE, or just pure nightmare fuel with the shooter thing, along with the big fucking purple moon named THE END spouting complete and utter nonsense that was not built up in a satisfying and compelling way in a story thatâs too subtle. The final horizon aims to fix this ending both narratively and mechanically. I say aim because they completely missed the fucking target.
Good lord, this was both innanely frustrating, boring and depressing. I can imagine due to Kishimoto trying to listen to all the feedback heâs gotten on Twitter, he tried his damn best to please everyone in such a limited time lot of 2 months and has only divided people on this far even further on this game.
How this works and is integrated into the game feels quite disconnected, instead of outright replacing it, itâs a new alternate timeline/âWhat ifâ where Sonic uses his cyber corruption to defeat the End, all while his amigos collect the Chaos Emeralds.
In terms of story, uh this was quite bad! Thereâs a lot of great moments, mostly in the final boss and ending but everything else is just what I hate about Frontiers plot, itâs so boring! Like, the dialogue has had a complete nose dive in quality in my opinion. A lot of the moment to moment dialogue just doesnât feel natural, the voice acting is just not there for most of the characters except for Roger, the rest of the characters sound bored out of their mind. The dialogue is the worse of Ian Flynn in my opinion, while I like his work in some cases, here I couldnât vibe with it. Thereâs a ton of references that donât gel with the general tone and atmosphere at hand along with making a lot of unnecessary retcons to the game and lore, some are good, most of them⊠Yikes. They reiterate the character arcs in the game and retcon a ton of things. So now Big is a hallucination of Sonic (Even though he showed up in the Prologue) and Sonic uses the power of cyberspace to create all the whack ass shit in the Starfall Islands, what now? Can Cyberspace pretend to be a bar of soap and give them all the slip? Itâs just silly. But the revised slow story is the least of my problems.
Okay, letâs talk about what I like. Cyberspace is pretty cool! It still sorta reuses stages but itâs fun! The final boss while not without its flaws, itâs good! Has a ton of hype moments as well especially with that new shiny form we get a split second of. Very nice! Whatâs not nice however is the new actual form we play is just Super Sonic, but with blue eyes! Very not nice! The new songs are pretty good! And uh⊠I like how the trial areas look!
Iâm gonna be honest guys, this update made be tired of a lot things both in the update and just on the whole, the only thing keeping me sane was booting up a couple rounds of F-Zero 99, because my god. This broke me.
The two fatal flaws of the update are first, the new characters. They are bad! The issue with them is that at their core theyâre fine, but they just have these little quirks that annoy you.
-Amy is arguably the best character here, her moveset is completely comprised of cards, not her actually weapon she uses. Itâs completely silly given how sheâs smacking people with cards, riding a motorcycle with cards and gliding with cards and the Hammer gets, is a parry. I donât know who to blame for this, but this feels like such a baffling decision. Despite this, I feel Amy is semi fun to play as, which can be said for all the characters, sheâs the only one that doesnât adversely have anything wrong with her
-What did they do to my boy Knuckles. Knuckles is one of my favourite sonic characters both to play as and narratively and in both sides they did him so dirty, they kinda reverted him back to a meathead now which is disappointing. But what they did do to him in terms of gameplay??? Itâs not terrible, but his glide has this weird delay that still keeps your speed, not only does this not make sense as Amy has her glide completely none delay. Because of this and i shit you not, you get a reboot of the infinite jump glitch from Rise of Lyric. Aside from this, his climbing doesnât feel natural or fun to use, and is too finicky.
-Tails is in the middle of this, to me he was the least fun character to use. His flying power is only increases your height vertically for a limited time and then you can move around for a limited time. This is understandable to limit how broken flying can be. But I donât know, itâs not really fun to use, and itâs still kinda broken, 06 at least had the right idea of capping it vertically at a certain point, in Frontiers it feels more like an glorified mid air jump rather than flying, Iâm harping on this because Tails isnât much of a very interesting character to play as, he can throw wrenchâs like a Hammer Bro, heâs packing heat like Shadow, and thatâs about it!
The biggest issue with all these characters is that they start you off at square one, youâve got level 1 speed, defence and absolute no stats, not even the cyloop. You essentially have to do a whole gameâs worth of upgrading on one Island. I do like the idea of finding experience points through the Koco but itâs just not fun to do this, especially given how in the night sections while thereâs a comet storm, the game showers you with Koco and such, so itâs pointless. What all 3 characters also suck at is combat, they are not built for combat, Tails especially given how he doesnât even have the homing attack. They canât go combo mad on the enemies and only have a dinky 3 hit combo along with maybe an additional attack in youâre lucky. I donât know if this was an intentional but you have to just, waddle away when you see an enemy. Itâs overall overwhelming disappointing that the thing that the update was advertised on is bad, but is the other stuff go-
No, not at all.
How this update is structured is like a whole new island, it reminds me of Cannons Core or End of the world but instead of being a perfectly lengthy, challenging final level putting what youâve learned throughout the game to the ultimate test. Itâs drawn out to all hell. Of course, I canât bring up this update without the challenge increase, I played on Normal and have heard horror stories of what it is on Hard and Extreme, and to me, itâs not designed very interestingly.
I love me a hard experience, especially for a platformer, but you have to understand the mechanics of the game and making that challenge satisfying around it, hell weâve seen it done well in this game with the new Koco and Action chain challenges So what happened here? Iâll give props for less automation and such but whenever thereâs fair and hard platforming challenge, thereâs just double the amount of dull, Kazio little Timmy ass level. It feels like getting it over Sonic edition, especially with those towers, which unlike Rhea (my favourite part of the game) donât have any pick me ups, if you mess up, itâs back to the beginning! And like, for some games like the 3D Mario games, you signed up for that shit since itâs the end of the game, you know thatâs youâre getting into a tough as nails challenge thatâs kinda unfair. But with this, I donât get why itâs like this, again itâs not that I find it being hard is a bad thing, far from it! Especially as someone who thought Frontiers was piss easy. But here, Frontiers has no difficultly curve, so itâs 0 to 100 so quickly.
Imagine in Sonic Heroes, you played through Team Rose, and then for the final stage you had super hard mode thrown onto you, thatâs what the final horizon is. Itâs not even like the Adventure Packs from Unleashed, since there itâs at least linear stuff that you can quickly rebound from when you fail through checkpoints, the incentive for all of these are rankings, which Frontiers in the Open Zone, does not have. So youâre left with an unsatisfactory challenge that isnât fun.
It also just has that artificial difficulty pumped to it, whenever you do the trials, your back to square one in terms of boss fights, instead of making the boss rush harder, they just make you have none of the stuff youâve worked hard on. In the final boss, parrying actually have timing now, which the game was not built for a perfect parry like this and they just, throw it on you.
Let be clear, when the final
Horizon is good, itâs some of the best stuff in Frontiers (Which is Generations at its worst but whatever) but you have to trudge through just a lot of things that I donât care for in this update. Iâll give props for being so ambitious with so many new assets and such, but like, my biggest thing with this account and whole review is how sometimes, ambition is the cause of downfall.
I would have much preferred just having the character playable in their own, self contained campaigns (Like you canât even play as them outside of the DLC area, which was disappointing at first but seeing how they play Iâm kinda glad lol), covering the events we only hear of in the main story, then, pull the end of the world stuff when Sonic gets corrupted at the end of Rhea, maybe use the Tower design or the new Cyberspace stages or something and then keep Ouranous structurally the same from the base game, then finally using the new final boss. That would have easily just make Frontiers slightly edge out (Maybe along with distinct themes for the last two islands as well but I can be too greedy), because as the Final Horizon, itâs mid⊠Not awful, but not peak either
Conclusion, Bros, I am tired
So, Sonic Frontiers is finally in complete open beta! It finally did it! But in all seriousness, this solidified my thoughts on Frontiers and new Sonic stuff as a whole, thereâs a lot of great ideas here and concepts, but thereâs always a catch and in this case, thereâs too many to list . Every damn thing, this game, Sonic Origins, Sonic Prime, the movies, the comics nearly everything post Generations has this rule and itâs disappointing to see Sonic fall into the same things and fans kinda just, eat it up.
Let me clear, I donât wanna be the fun police like a lot of Sonic detractors are who arenât even fans of the franchise yet still check it out knowing theyâll dislike like it. I do not want to ridicule the franchise, I want to see it improve, but to do that, we need to acknowledge its flaws, itâs shortcomings yet celebrate when itâs gets something right. You can love something so much, if you think Frontiers is the peakest of fiction, then do! I am not stopping you to think that as someone whose opinions has flunacted in this game more than the UKâs economy. But understand that some of this is flawed in my and many others eyes and can do better, and critique has improved this game! Look at Update 2 and parts of Update 3! Without fan feedback, we wouldnât have gotten the Spin Dash or New Game Plus! When a new game comes out, I will bet that the issues I have with this entire game, will hopefully be fixed and can be something that genuinely stand as one of my favourite Sonic games.
But as it is, I am tired. Maybe Superstars will bring me out of being tired, but Iâm kinda tired of the series new stuff while semi satisfying me still falling to the same pitfalls killing the franchise, only this time people are less outspoken towards it. I will always cherish everything in the past, but as for the future, it looks bright, and itâs gonna be great for most, but I need to rest damnit.
it's peak fiction and I'm dying on that hill.
Edit: Nvm it was at 4.5 stars before but I'm dropping it down to 3 until Sonic Team stops being retarded.
Edit: Nvm it was at 4.5 stars before but I'm dropping it down to 3 until Sonic Team stops being retarded.
If you're not a fan of the words "peak fiction", "GOAT", "raw", "fire", do not buy this game. Because it'll come up a whole lot.