One of the worst Sonic games ever released. Day one I found myself enjoying the game with the music and bosses, but the gameplay and level design has always been lacking. Gone are the interesting set pieces and different routes seen in the majority of Sonic titles preceding this, and now we're left with gigantic open worlds filled with nothing. If you really want some platforming, you'll have to be way up in the sky on invisible rails and thin platforms.

And while it is fun to boost off of rails at high speed to see if you can reach another section, or boosting off a platform to reach another in an unintended way, the game is still fundamentally boring in it's actual objectives. The minigames that force you to do mind numbingly boring tasks, the challenges placed around the open world that focus on one part of Sonic's moveset such as side stepping, homing attacking, or "parrying", and cylooping around specific objects. It's extremely tasteless.

The story for this game was written by Ian Flynn, a longtime writer for the IDW and Archie Sonic comics. Similar to those, the writing is very poor, filled with mindless callbacks in an attempt to "strengthen the lore and continuity", and has laughably bad character writing, as everyone suddenly wants to do a 360 on their former personalities. And while what the story was trying to go for with it's characters is appreciated, it ultimately turns a game that could've had an interesting premise, into fixing what was wrong with everyone for the past decade, and setting up hopes for future installments, rather than focusing on the now.

The combat is mindless, you can pull off some neat combos and chains here and there, but the game does nothing to punish you for mindlessly spamming attacks or tries to teach you actual combinations of moves within Sonic's skillset. Extremely disappointing.

Bosses are the same as above, mindless combat with some neat eyecandy in it's QTE's.

The music, while setting itself far from the usual style of music the franchise has, does have a few bangers here and there. I love lo-fi as well as EDM, so this was a treat for my ears. Kellin Quinn as well as Tyler Smyth (who previously did some songs for Sonic Forces) comes along to drop some excellent tracks too.

Visuals are mediocre at best, sometimes the landscape looks great, while other times looks like a bunch of assets thrown together without much thought of synergy or style.

Cyberspace. Thank god these stages are mostly optional for completing the game, because they're some of the worst designed, looking, and feeling levels I've played in not just Sonic, but any other platformer in my life. The physics are complete shit, the level design is questionably bad, and the spectacle of it all is so pathetic. Sonic Generations, a game that came over 10 years before this, blows these stages out of the water with absolutely no struggle.

All in all a mess, I seriously couldn't recommend it to anyone wanting to try a Sonic game out.

Sonic Frontiers is kind of a mess. There are some good ideas here, but they are unfortunately plagued by a myriad of design problems. Even when I thought something was working really well, I couldn’t help but notice all of the bad that came along with it.

First, the world. Visually speaking, the world feels barren and lifeless. Steel structures, floating rails, and a variety of other objects populate the landscape and create a sort of playground for Sonic to run, jump, and grind around in. Unfortunately, this same structure is used for every island in the game. It felt to me as though you are not so much exploring the world itself but an elaborate set of floating toys on top of the backdrop of an island. Very rarely is the environment itself used to proper effect in exploration.

The story progression is too formulaic. Collect Memory Tokens to activate cutscenes to proceed in the story, defeat Titan enemies for Gears to activate Portals, complete Portals for Vault Keys to unlock Chaos Emeralds... Rinse and repeat for each island. I would have loved for more dynamic story progression, but this is all we get. When I reached the third island and realized it was going to be the exact same thing as the first two, I had to take a break from the game. It simply felt like too much of a chore.

Memory Tokens are used to access cutscenes with the game’s cast of characters (mainly Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, Tails, Sage, Eggman). These cutscenes, almost without exception, consist of characters standing around and talking amongst themselves. That is to say, they are quite boring. More dynamic storytelling would have done wonders for this drab world.

I mentioned Portals and Vault Keys earlier. The Portals (unlocked with Gears) grant access to one of a total of 30 “Cyberspace” levels. These levels play more like a traditional Sonic experience in familiar locales such as Green Hill, Sky Sanctuary, and more. Compared to the main game, these zones are incredibly colourful and feel great to play. I had so much fun with these levels that after beating the main game, I went back and played through all of them a second time! My only complaint is that they practically give you Red Rings for free a lot of the time. (My understanding is that collecting all of the Red Rings in a stage should be somewhat of a challenge, with them hidden around the stage, but in Cyberspace levels they will often just put them directly in your path, removing any sense of achievement you would get for finding them.)

The unique enemy encounters and boss fights employ unique mechanics and were mostly fun, but this cannot be said for some enemy types, which at times felt like a chore to fight. To add to this, without even fully exploring each island, my character was fully upgraded (all abilities unlocked) before the game was even half over, effectively eliminating the need to participate in any combat for EXP, so I began to avoid it unless necessary.

The various “challenges/puzzles” hidden around the map are mostly a joke. I cannot stress how just how trivial most of these are. It really just felt like busywork and not comparable to any kind of puzzle you would find in, for example, a Zelda game.

One minigame that the developers had the audacity to make mandatory for main story progression is the Pinball game on Chaos Island. With limited continues, it tasks you at achieving a specific score (I believe 5 million points). Given that pinball is not exactly skill based and your ball can just so happen to bounce strangely and drop out of the playing field at random, endeavoring for this score can feel like an impossible trial at first. It took me multiple failed attempts and over 30 minutes just playing this minigame before I was lucky enough to get a high score multiplayer and move on.

The world of Sonic Frontiers feels fun to run around in for a time, but quickly overstays its welcome with a lack of variety and rinse and repeat progression. If there is one saving grace for this game then it is in the Cyberspace levels, but these are just one small part of a much larger game. I can tell that there is enough to collect and explore to add dozens of hours in playtime, but I could not feel any incentive or desire to go out and do so.

Sonic fans will probably enjoy this one either way, but otherwise I think your mileage may vary. There is a lot to collect (mostly busywork), but not a whole lot to see across the five islands, and while a solid foundation might be here, I couldn’t help but feel wanting for something more.

A game that manages to be quite fun to play most of the time despite being absolutely filled to the brim with baffling game design choices.

I've never really cared for Sonic games - 3D or 2D - but I found this to be a surprisingly compelling experience, so much so that I even got the platinum trophy for it. Maybe because they actually tried something new here? I thought the tacked on more traditional 3D Sonic levels (the Cyber Space stages) were a bummer and really unnecessary. At least they usually had fun music in them. Speaking of the music, I think the soundtrack is the highlight of the game for me. The tracks vary from chuckleworthy yet sincere (nu) metal battle themes to short and sweet house tunes to Breath of the Wild-esque ambience - I really, really liked it.

I don't have the energy or the will to go over every little thing that made me go "what? why?" while playing the game but rest assured that list was not short. I can't say I really paid much attention to the story but it felt like the characters' dialogue was written in a deliberately fanservice-y manner with various name-drops and references to previous games' events(?). If you're a hardcore Sonic fan (like most Sonic fans seem to be to be fair) you might appreciate it, I thought it was annoying.

I think Sonic the game character suits an open world game really well: it's fun to traverse environments at breakneck speeds and hop around amusement park like devices in the air! Sonic the game series, however, has a lot of structural things that need to either be heavily revamped or let go entirely in order for this type of free roam action-adventure game to properly work IMO. I'm not sure SEGA or Sonic Team are up to the task though but time will tell, I'm not not looking forward to seeing what a potential Sonic Frontiers 2 will be like I suppose? Yeah, that's about the highest praise and/or level of intrigue I'll allow myself to give for 3D Sonic.

Best story in a sonic game, but the gameplay has highs and lows. The open zone is super fun to explore. Sonic is a blast to control. Combat lacks substance sadly, but boss fights make up for that with style. Every so often you have to play a shitty minigame. Cyber Space is overhated; it isnt good on its own but nicely serves its purpose as a momentary distraction from the open zone without feeling shoehorned or being overly frustrating. The Final Horizon serves as a fitting end to the game, after its most recent update. While combat in the open zone and cyberspace both suck, they're also effortless to ignore. Exploration in the open zone is a joy as amy and knuckles. Tails not so much due to his lack of a homing attack. The towers are very fun and challenging platforming tasks. The trials are pretty lame tbh but then the final boss is the peakest of peaks. It's a mixed bag a little less consistent than what came before it but definitely worth it for the highs and the variety.

Story suck ass it's horrible. The characters aren't themselves and Amy isn't even a character. Her motivation just doesn't make any sense and means nothing. Tails has been through this arc like 3 times already I'm tired of seeing it again and knuckles dosent make any sense. Sage is a cool concept but she does nothing In The grand scheme of things and eggman might as well not be in the game. Roger Craig Smith is at his worst here as he doesn't perform that sonic attitude. The callbacks are annoying and don't make anything sense as they reference game that aren't in the cannon or are In Alternate worlds. The final boss sucks too. But the gameplay is really exhilarating. As a lifelong sonic fan it feels liberation running around in a giant field going really fast and completing all of these little obstacle courses. The combat is jank but tolerable. The cyber space levels are the worst part of the game. It removes all of your stats and the designs are just terrible.
My favorite parts are the bosses. The music is phenomenal and fighting them is cool as you can speed run the bosses if you know the combat enough which is something not a lot of the boost formula sonic games do
Overall just another mishandled sonic game with missing potential. Only check it out if your curious.

I love this game. I beat it 4 times. The director said that he wanted to focus on three things to make Sonic popular again: open world gameplay, realistic graphics, and a complex and detailed story. This has all three of those plus a detailed combat system. I love exploring the world, fighting the roving bosses, and doing the individual challenge levels. The complex story is a great bonus, and the world might not be "alive" in the sense of other open world games (no traveling characters for instance) but the night/day cycle and weather add to it. My favorite Sonic game by far.

Is the game unpolished as fuck Yes
Are the cyberspace stages kinda ass Yes
Could have the game play been better Yea

But I don’t care this is a fun as hell game from start to almost finished. I do want people to go in as blind as possible but all I will say is that I haven’t felt this sense of adventure since unleashed.

Sonic is fucking back and I am all here for it.

Before saying anything I wanna bring something up. A friend recommended that I install a cheat to use the spin dash at the start. While I did use it, I tried to restrict my usage of it and to put it lightly this game would be a 1 or 0/10 without it.

(Dropped on the third island) Good god, I genuinely don’t know what to think of this franchise anymore with this and Superstars. I came into this game super wanting to love it I really did and I can see some elements of why people like it but good fucking god this is one of the most dull experiences I’ve had with a game. To be fair, I do wanna talk about two things I enjoyed with the game. The story from what I experienced was really good. I think I still prefer the Adventure games, Unleashed etc, but a huge step up after Lost World and Forces. I love the writing a lot and how much the characters are fleshed out considering that they were flanderized in the previous games and Sage was a great addition to the cast. The music is also the strongest it's ever been. Same thing as before, it's a great step up from previous games. The only tracks that I thought were kinda weak are the overworld themes but they weren’t bad. With my positives out of the way this game is basically the equivalent of somebody's first attempt at an open area game. Terrible doesn’t even begin to describe the level design. All of the open terrain is just randomly placed everywhere throughout the map with no thought or reason. 6 rails in the air, speed boosters randomly placed that lead to nothing, it's just a huge mess. None of the terrain has any thought put into it or takes advantage of Sonic abilities. Speaking of Sonic himself, good god did they sure learn from Forces. Yes I’m aware that you’re able to change the controls and how the game feels but it doesn’t even begin to fix how Sonic controls. He just feels stiff and awkward to control and is just not fun to play around with in the hub world itself. His movement overall is pathetic and if it weren’t for Heroes, this would be the worst controls I’ve gotten to experience in a game like this. The structure of this game is just plain awful. It is just so repetitive and nothing is done to ever spice it up. Once you’ve cleared the first island you already know how the rest of the game is going to be. The puzzles are just a complete joke. They are either super easy and/or monotonous. Similar to what I was saying about the structure, after the first island you’ve basically seen all of the puzzles so if you didn’t enjoy them the first time sure hope you’ll enjoy it again for the rest of the game. The cyberspace levels, good god if I wanted to play the previous games again I would just open them up. It is incredible that the team thought that it was a fun idea for the player to just play through rehashed levels from previous games with the already terrible control and feel. I understand that some people get a kick out of these levels for the speedrunning aspect, but for me if I wanted to do that I WOULD JUST PLAY THE ORIGINAL GAMES. Good fucking god the combat. I understand it’s for kids and it’s supposed to be simple and easy to pick up but at that point just throw it out entirely. I thought the combat sections in 06 went on for way too long but who knew I had it good. Sonic’s moveset is just incredibly dull and you either mash the attack button, cyloop or end up just spamming a projectile if you really can’t be bothered. None of the regular enemies encourage any sort of unique playstyle and are just boring. The mini boss enemies are somehow even worse. Not only are they uninteresting in design but THEY TAKE FOR FUCKING EVER. I DON’T EVER WANT TO FIGHT ANY OF THESE BECAUSE IT IS JUST SO BORING TO SIT THROUGH. YOU WAIT GOD KNOWS HOW LONG BEFORE THEY CAN FINALLY LET YOU ATTACK. None of these enemies are even challenging, they just take forever. I really REALLY wanted the bosses to be the highlight of the game and to be fair the first boss is. It really is exhilarating to play and somewhat tries to make the best use of such a garbage combat system. While the first boss is fantastic good fucking god I don’t ever want to replay the second one. Again it is not challenging at all, it just takes forever because they force you to do a running section that takes way too long and completely kills any enjoyment I had leading up to it. The actual boss itself is just a mess and is more annoying than anything. I don’t know what to say anymore. This game has just been incredibly disappointing and just takes everything that made a game like Breath of the Wild incredible, and just ruins every aspect of it.

The pre-release for this game was one of the rockiest rides I've ever been on. From a vague CGI reveal trailer to the long wait till that god awful IGN reveal trailer, I probably felt all emotions humanly possible waiting for this game to come out. After Forces, I had almost lost complete faith in this franchise. releasing that game after something like Mania was the greatest fumble I've ever seen in gaming history. It wasn't a good spot for fans, especially since Mania looked like a significant change in how the franchise was being handled. 

After the IGN World premiere, I felt the same feeling I did when Forces dropped. It was over; we were cooked. It wasn't until the demo at Summer Games Fest that everyone would actually get their hands on the game and see for themselves what this game had to offer. I was broke as hell and lazy as fuck, so I didn't go, but the response to the demo on Twitter surprised the hell out of me. To put it bluntly, I was surprised people were saying this game was better than bad; it was great, amazing even, and I just had to take their word for it. I don't think people would lie about liking a Sonic game in the year 2022. I only had witness accounts and terrible-quality phone videos of boost gameplay to go off of, as well as some small gameplay snippets the YouTube channel posted leading up to the game's release. After everything was said and done, the only thing left for me to do was wait for the game to come out. 

When I had the game in my hands, I skipped a class I had that day for the first and only time. I played this game from start to finish twice, once on the Switch (bad) and once on PC (good). On my switch playthrough, I beat that game in 13 hours in one session. I wanted to stop multiple times, but I never actually did. I was hooked on this game, and I loved every bit of it. I liked running around and fighting enemies; it was new and a unique spin on this franchise's formula. The bosses were great, and the soundtrack was phenomenal. and the story wasn't terrible for once; it was actually decent! I saw the light; Sonic was back. Over time, that feeling faded, and my opinions changed, as they should. But there's so much I want to say about this game. 

I don't love this game like I do others like SA1 or Unleashed, but I do have a great deal of respect for Morio Kishimoto, Iizuka, and everyone else who worked on this game. A game like this shouldn't possibly exist in the state it's in. The Sonic Team was in the most unwinnable situation ever. With layoffs for their team, a reduced budget, and strict deadlines up their ass, it looked unwinnable, but they made the game they wanted to make. If Iizuka hadn't negotiated for that extra year of development, then I don't know what would've happened to this franchise; it probably would've sunk, but we don't have to worry about that. 

This game feels like the fresh new gameplay style the series really needed. The series has had multiple gameplay styles before, but I feel like this game has the potential to pave the way for a satisfying middle ground between adventure and boost gameplay in the future. This game has a world design I like to call "McDonald's Play Place.". It's mostly just huge terrain, except that you have tiny, curated spots of platforming segments that reward you for completing them. It's not a bad style at all. I find it fun doing the little platforming sections quickly and moving on to the next in quick succession. The only problems that stood out were during Chaos Island, where you're forced into a 2D camera and get stuck in some challenges by accident. Things like that can get frustrating quickly. The pop-in doesn't do the games any favors either; I'm going to assume the switch port is the main reason why the pop-in is so terrible. I'm of the opinion that the switch port is surprisingly decent, but I still don't think the other ports should suffer because of this one.

Cyberspace is coupled with this game as its second main gameplay style. It's kind of terrible. I can safely say that it's a shallow imitation of good boost level design from before, because it's just reused level design from before. On one hand, yeah, it's terrible, and on the other, deadlines are a bitch, and this was probably the easiest thing they could do. If the controls were half decent, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but I'm kind of shocked we got something worse than Sonic's gameplay in Forces. I say kind of terrible because I kind of like how broken and satisfying the air boost is, so that's a plus. Chronos Island has entirely unique level designs for Cyberspace, and they have a good grasp of how to design levels; they just need to be longer than a minute. If they had more time, then maybe their skills would've shown more.

Combat with Sonic is not a bad idea. It's just that this game has more of a stilted and clunky alpha version of a sensible combat system and honestly doesn't feel good to play for me. Kishimoto has stated they thought of DMC combat as a good base for combat, but IMO, I feel like they could do a system more like KH2, where it's very simple on a surface level, but bosses and encounters are built around mastering how to pace yourself in combat and not having complicated combos for the sake of all audiences. All in all, I find myself avoiding all combat unless necessary for the story because it just isn't fun to me. Maybe it will be improved in future outings.

The soundtrack for this game is phenomenal; I understand why it broke the top 10 on Spotify. It deserves all the praise. Tomoya Ohtani continues to prove himself as an amazing composer for the series, and his overwhelming passion shines through his compositions. 

Bosses in this game are the main thing I see people talk about in this game, and for good reason. It's the first time we see Super Sonic used casually throughout a game as a major part of the story. Super Sonic being used in regular boss fights is cool in concept, but due to him being Super Sonic, it makes things hard to balance around. I find these bosses to be great in presentation but bad from a design standpoint. When the worst thing a boss can do is waste your time until you run out of resources, I think you messed up badly. There's no real challenge, but at least it looks cool, I guess. Spectacle can only carry you so far. You need style and substance, not one or the other. I will say, though, that these fights are cool as fuck; I can't hate them.

The story for this game, while not great, is a good change of pace from the self-serious and undercooked plot of Sonic Forces and the laughable embarrassment of a nothingburger that is Sonic Lost World. The subtle writing and dialogue can seem a little corny, like Sonic's constant references to past games, but for once, it feels nice to have some acknowledgement of connected continuity. We haven't had something like that since the adventure era. I'm a sucker for character-focused narratives, and it was awesome to have Sonic and his friends think about old times and reflect on their time together. I'm mixed on Ian Flynn's abilities as a writer, but he did well this time. Sage is an okay addition to the cast. I think it's neat that Eggman has a new member of his cast that isn't an annoying robot. She just needs to spread her wings more in the future.

As an experience, I say it does lose its muster towards the end. Rhea Island and Ouranos Island feel like they were bundled together at the last minute, and the final boss fight against Supreme is terrible and severely disappointing. The end fight in Hard Mode is also terrible. Maybe I don't see the vision because I haven't played Ikaruga, but I didn't think it was a good experience, especially since it was just a reused minigame style. On the topic of minigames, fuck that pinball minigame on Chaos Island that shit never worked properly for me. 

I have to commend Kishimoto and Iizuka for believing in Sonic as much as they do. I believe they echo the same love and passion long-time fans have for the series. Whether you love or hate this game, we can't deny the impact it has had on the franchise. Sonic is doing well for the first time in Japan in a looooooooong time. More heads are turning to the series, and the developers have a vision for the future of this series. We just have to believe in them as much as they believe in Sonic.

Right now, the franchise seems to be doing great (mostly thanks to the success of the movies). Sonic Team is recruiting again, and it looks like it's only going to get better from here.

Let's just hope Sega doesn't screw it up.