'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 – scenes similar to those in the anime and The End of the Evangelion, but also in everyday sceneries – 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 Īzuka 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, ‘The Emotional Realism of Anime: Rewriting Characters and Affective Reception in Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time’, in Mechademia, vol. 15, no. 1, 2022, pp. 81-102.
[2] Yuzuke Takahashi, ‘［TGS2022］「ソニックフロンティア」制作者インタビュー。クラシック，モダンに続く第三世代ソニックに込められた思いとは’, on 4Gamer.net, 16th September 2022.
[3] Zackari Greif, ‘Sonic Team Leader Explains Sonic Frontiers' Use of Old Level Designs’, 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 – scenes similar to those in the anime and The End of the Evangelion, but also in everyday sceneries – 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 Īzuka 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, ‘The Emotional Realism of Anime: Rewriting Characters and Affective Reception in Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time’, in Mechademia, vol. 15, no. 1, 2022, pp. 81-102.
[2] Yuzuke Takahashi, ‘［TGS2022］「ソニックフロンティア」制作者インタビュー。クラシック，モダンに続く第三世代ソニックに込められた思いとは’, on 4Gamer.net, 16th September 2022.
[3] Zackari Greif, ‘Sonic Team Leader Explains Sonic Frontiers' Use of Old Level Designs’, on gamerant.com, 30th August 2022, consulted on 16th June 2023.
Original review
Definitely wanna do a longer review of the game since I feel I missed out a lot on what I said due to the emulated port, There’s a lot of things that’s great positive and negative I’ve noted throughout this new play through and the new content updates while definitely intended at launch are welcome and add a ton of replay value to the original game which felt it lacked content but as it is, I feel this game while badly/poorly designed and way too easy still is kinda fun, can’t wait to do an longer at look on this soon.
Definitely wanna do a longer review of the game since I feel I missed out a lot on what I said due to the emulated port, There’s a lot of things that’s great positive and negative I’ve noted throughout this new play through and the new content updates while definitely intended at launch are welcome and add a ton of replay value to the original game which felt it lacked content but as it is, I feel this game while badly/poorly designed and way too easy still is kinda fun, can’t wait to do an longer at look on this soon.
This review contains spoilers
I went into Sonic Frontiers cautiously optimistic, not sure what to expect after its rollercoaster of a marketing campaign. A large part of me began to believe the game would be nothing but a complete mess of unfinished ideas. Random puzzles, platforming challenges and enemy encounters scattered across a series of generic-looking islands, with the occasional portal to a traditional Sonic stage. After playing through the main story three times, as well as completing every challenge across all five islands, I can say that that is essentially what this game is. There is so much untapped potential in every element of it, and yet, somehow, Sonic Frontiers manages to be a game I can truly say is worth your time playing.
I’ve always been an advocate for the open world formula to be explored by the Sonic series, allowing the player to traverse a vast, open environment at high speeds and use their momentum to traverse the landscape in creative ways. A series of fangames have made attempts at this and, while I haven’t been a fan of their execution, I hoped that one day Sonic Team would give this a go. Sonic Frontiers, however, goes in quite the opposite direction with Sonic’s movement, as well as the designs of the islands themselves. Sonic lacks any realistic sort of momentum on the ground, and is magnetised to it in such a way that makes it incredibly hard to get any air time by launching off the terrain. The rare instances in which you do manage to go airborne are quite fun, allowing you to spam a series of tricks, or transition into a drop dash for a boost of speed while landing, but the circumstances under which this happens are so inconsistent. Even if Sonic didn’t feel so grounded and weightless, the landscape rarely accommodates for this wild sort of experimentation. Yet again, there are areas that do allow for this, but they are spread few and far between in these islands that don’t quite feel “built” for Sonic. Despite all of this, traversing the islands can be a lot of fun at times, which I think can be owed partially to Sonic’s controls and movement.
The majority of Sonic’s moves from the most recent “boost” games are featured in Frontiers, including the homing attack, stomp, quickstep, and of course the boost itself. However, despite so much of this moveset being carried over, Sonic controls far better here than any previous attempts at this formula, with his turning feeling smoother than ever. Even when boosting at top speeds, Sonic can swerve left or right in an instant, making traversing the landscape a breeze; not to mention that Sonic’s most notable new move – the cyloop – requires you to draw circles around objects and enemies, so tight turning is a must. The cyloop plays a huge part in all elements of the open world; from completing puzzles to fighting your foes, drawing circles is frequently the answer to all of your problems. While Sonic’s ground controls are great, his movement in the air is vastly inferior. Jumping kills all of your forward momentum; Sonic can only change direction in an awkward turning arc; the air boost gives little horizontal distance and drops far too quickly. Other than using the games inconsistent collision to fly off of the terrain, the only way to get some decent air time in this game is by launching off of rails which, while admittedly fun, only draws further attention to how much the jump slows you down.
I’ll briefly talk about the story and say I enjoyed it for the most part, finding it to be a massive step up from the last, well, 2 decades of stories in Sonic games. The plot itself is fairly simple, but the moments and conversations we get between characters are the best they’ve ever been. Not much happens in a lot of these cutscenes due to the nature of the game’s story, but the moments we get of Sonic interacting with Tails, Knuckles and Amy feel more human than almost anything the series has to offer. Sonic feels a lot more mature here, providing advice and support to his friends accompanied by some new voice direction that I think fits Roger Craig Smith better than any other game he’s been in thus far. I also really enjoyed Sonic’s interactions with Sage, Eggman’s AI invention and tool to accessing the Starfall Islands. Sage starts off cold and distant but, through Sonic, she learns humanity by witnessing his acts of love, courage and determination. It’s a sweet story that plays out nicely, and provides an interesting kind of villain the series has never seen the likes of before.
Moving onto the islands themselves, each of them features a series of platforming challenges scattered about the world, with platforms, rails, springs and rings floating above the landscape. While these were an odd sight at first, I don’t actually have much of a problem with these visually. These obstacle courses in the sky would frequently catch my attention, and finding my way up there was oftentimes half the fun. What I do have a problem with, however, is the atrocious amount of pop in these objects have. While I understand there will always be this to some degree – especially with a character who moves as fast as Sonic – objects in this game will sometimes pop in that you aren’t exactly far away from. Not only does this incredibly distracting limitation make it harder to decide where you want to go from a distance, it also detracts from an otherwise stunning game. Frontiers is easily the best looking Sonic game to date, with vast, grassy fields; sizzling deserts and volcanic islands in the sky. All of these environments look stunning at times, and are topped off with a day/night cycle than can provide some beautiful lighting. It’s such a shame that the pop in is such a glaring issue, as it can sometimes break my immersion of what is otherwise the prettiest Sonic game ever.
Getting back to the open-world platforming, these mainly consist of platforms, rails and other objects that are constructed into obstacle courses akin to some of the level design featured in previous Sonic games. Completing these provides you with a memory token: the collectible that Sonic uses to save each of his friends from Cyberspace. While these challenges often require no more than a few button presses to complete, they are for the most part short and snappy, rarely overstaying their welcome or trapping you on a challenge for too long. They even take notes from Sonic Lost World, introducing wall-running as a move to the boost controls for the first time. The ability is a lot more forgiving and easier to use than the iteration featured in Lost World, as well as usually being automated to some degree, but is a welcome addition nonetheless. It can be quite fun completing multiple of these platforming challenges at once and trying to maintain the flow: soaring through a dash ring at the end and landing on a nearby rail to complete another challenge, or locking onto a spring and seeing where it takes you. There is a lot of fun to be had in stringing together these inputs so seamlessly, and can turn collecting the resources to save your friends a much easier task. Platforming only comprises a fourth of the activities you’ll be getting up to on the island, though, as there is a lot more at stake than just saving your friends.
To make traversal easier, Sonic Frontiers provides you with a map that can be expanded and filled in by completing a series of puzzles and challenges scattered about the world, which also create rails for fast travel and grant you seeds to upgrade your stats. In a similar vain to the platforming challenges, most of these are quick to complete and never go on for too long, despite what the overly generous timers would have you believe. The difference in quality, however, is vast, with challenges ranging from genuinely fun to insultingly simple. Many are as basic as drawing a cyloop to put out a torch or a pillar of light, or turning on a series of switches with a homing attack. I struggle to decide which is the worst: the hamster wheel that takes nothing but running to complete, or the parrying challenge which presents no real threat considering the parry in Sonic Frontiers has no timing to it at all. Despite there being some seriously weak challenges in the mix, there were a significant number I enjoyed. The panel puzzles are incredibly simple at first and, while they don’t exactly reach enigmatic levels of complexity, I found it quite fun figuring out a route to clear all the blue squares. The basketball minigame is decent, requiring you position yourself correctly to line up your shots. There are quite a few challenges that involve traversing the world in a given amount of time, whether that be making it to a specific point of the map or passing through a series of checkpoints. There were about as many puzzles that I liked as those I disliked, but their pure variety and brief nature meant I rarely ever got sick of them.
The best challenges are easily the ones that are mandatory to the story, as it is clear these had the most effort placed into them. The Ikaruga-inspired hacking minigame is a great deal of fun, along with the bolt-collecting challenge, which takes place over a pit of lava which stops you from staying in one place and forces you to keep moving before the platforms collapse. There are a series of challenges involving the Kocos, like herding them all into one place, or saving them from enemies to bring them back to Knuckles. The skydiving mission on Chaos Island sprung a surprising challenge on me, with a much less forgiving timer that requires quick reactions to floating obstacles to reach the ground in time. These challenges are overall much higher in quality than the optional ones, with a clear amount of extra love being placed into them. They also feature Sonic’s Chaos Emerald dance animation which I loved, taking me back to the days of Sonic’s breakdancing in Generations.
That brings us on to the third element of Sonic Frontiers’ open world. When you’re not completing platforming challenges or completing a variety of puzzles and missions, there’s a good chance you’re engaging with the game’s combat. For the first time in a mainline 3D Sonic game, Sonic himself has his own dedicated combat system – disregarding the Werehog of course. This comes complete with a skill tree, which can be filled in using experience points found as collectibles, obtained by defeating enemies, and built up through completing air tricks. Despite my initial excitement of having such a varied arsenal of combat options for Sonic, I quickly realised how little variety there is to this skill tree. I found moves like the Phantom Rush and Quick Cyloop to be welcome additions to the moveset, but a lot of these attacks feel redundant considering how similar they can be. The Sonic Boom and Cross Slash both fire a series of shockwaves; the Spin Slash and Cyclone Kick spin Sonic in a circle to deal multiple hits of damage to an enemy; the Wild Rush and Loop Kick pull Sonic away from an enemy only to come back in and deal a blow from the side. It feels like the developers focused on flashiness first, rather than creating a combat system with depth to it. The moves themselves also take way too long to connect, with some of them playing out for a couple of seconds at a time while you sit there and watch Sonic attack. As I mentioned when discussing the puzzles, the parry has no timing to it, so most enemies don’t pose much of a threat as Sonic can just hold his glorified guard attack and wait for his high-damage counter prompt to appear.
I’m probably making it sound like I hate the combat in Frontiers, but it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, I think there is a lot of fun to be had at times with it. I wasn’t so interested in the basic enemy interactions, but I think the game’s combat can begin to shine when fighting the Guardians of the islands. These are larger enemies that grant Sonic portal gears, and each one has its own unique abilities and attacks. Some of these are frankly awful, especially considering you may have to fight Guardians more than once to collect the necessary portal gears for each island. Battles like Tank and Shark force you to wait for extended periods of time before you reach their damage phase, where the boss sits there defenceless as you spam a series of random attacks in the hope that you kill them before the waiting game begins again. Strider and Caterpillar play a similar game, but at least with these you have an objective in these phases that can allow you to reach the damage phase quicker. Squid and Fortress, too, play out a similar cycle, but force you to chase them rather than staying in close proximity.
Those are the worst of the Guardians, leaving a fair few that I actually quite enjoyed. Asura – despite its janky collision – was a great deal of fun, adding more obstacles for each of its arms that you run up and destroy, Metal Gear: Rising style. Spider provides a similar spectacle as Sonic skydives towards the enemy in the second phase. It’s quite the set-piece, but can make the fight drag a bit when replayed multiple times. I loved bouncing off the walls of Sumo’s arena to send him flying around the ring, although I wish it put up a bit more of a fight. Ghost might just be my favourite, having you complete platforming challenges to destroy a series of statues while the enemy drains your rings and drops obstacles to impede your progress.
I think the bosses that mesh best with Frontiers combat, however, are the introductory Guardians Ninja and Tower, which appear in multiple different incarnations across the Starfall Islands, each time with more tricks up their sleeve. Ninja starts off simple, using its blade-like arms to swing at Sonic and shield itself, but later on begins to fly, teleport, clone itself and fire laser beams from its eye. It’s a battle that, while very well designed, would be so much better if the parry was punishing with its timing. Tower gets similarly upgraded with each new appearance it takes on. It starts off with a defensive ring and a projectile attack as it hops and hovers around, slamming into the ground to deal damage. It increases its arsenal of attacks and enhances its current ones like Ninja, but what intrigues me with Tower is all the different ways it can be dealt with. It only loses health when you attack its top layer, which can be brought down to Sonic’s level by destroying each of the lower levels. There are many ways in which you can skip this process however, letting you get creative with the ways you defeat the boss. You can get Sonic high up using the environment around you to go straight for the head; you can run up its body when it slams down into the ground; you can quick cyloop its head to destroy all the lower layers at once and not have to climb up again. There are so many ways to tackle it, and this sort of creative freedom is what I wish this game’s encounters had more of.
That brings us onto the fourth and final element of Frontiers’ gameplay loop: Cyberspace. Those gears I mentioned earlier are used to access these portals that transport you to one of thirty traditional Sonic levels, consisting of one of four themes: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary or the new digital city theme. If the re-use of level themes yet again hadn’t already annoyed me, the fact that the majority of these stages borrow level design from Sonic Unleashed, Generations and Adventure 2 really disappointed me. I’m getting tired of the reliance on nostalgia, and would have liked to see some original stages in the game that is supposedly taking the series in a brand new direction. These stages are only dragged down even further by the controls being significantly worse than in the open-world, with Sonic feeling much stiffer than usual. I entered this game prepared to treat Cyberspace as nothing more than a task that would be quick to get through and wouldn’t bog down my enjoyment of the game too much. But in all honesty, I actually found myself looking forward to each of these portals.
When it comes to the level design, the majority of them are pulled straight from good games so are fun to play inherently. I will say that this game’s controls work much better with the Adventure layouts, as this slower Sonic doesn’t lend himself as well to traditional boost levels, but even the Unleashed and Generations rehashes can be fun at times. Later Cyberspace stages begin to provide some entirely new levels, and these are some of the best. Alternate pathways; platforming sections; and overall better utilisation of Frontiers’ moveset. I’ve lost many hours running through these stages again and again, trimming down my time as much as I can with fun exploits like the homing dash. The music in these stages is great, too, as expected for Sonic games at this point. It’s so hard to pick out only a few standouts, but 1-2, 2-7, 3-6 and 4-4 are just a few great examples. The electronic dance music perfectly fits the cybernetic aesthetic of this world, while also being similar enough to each other to give cyberspace its own distinctive sound.
On the topic of music, Frontiers’ features a phenomenal soundtrack. Beyond these EDM-style tracks used in Cyberspace, other areas of the OST impressed me in their own ways, the island themes in particular. Kronos, Ares and Chaos are all made up of seven movements each, moving from one to the next with each Chaos Emerald you collect. These tracks have a beautiful progression, and begin to show more and more of their personality as you discover more of each island. The first movement of Kronos for example sounds incomplete, with chord progressions that wander, directionless, like Sonic in this unfamiliar location. The second and third movements begin to find their footing with piano melodies and chord progressions that, while more complete, still feel isolated and alone without many other instruments surrounding them. The tracks continue to grow and develop as Sonic explores more and more of this mysterious landscape, searching for answers and uncovering the secrets of the ancients. Returning melodies from previous movements are now mixed and paired with new ones, while also being recontextualised by the introduction of some more sinister electronic instruments that lie underneath, removing some of the island’s initial friendliness given its dark backstory. Ares and Chaos follow similar progressions to this, showing personality through their progression that were a joy to experience on my journey through the game.
Of course, I can’t talk about music without talking about the Titan fights. After collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds on an island Sonic must take down the Titan of that island: one of the things keeping his friends trapped in Cyberspace. With each seventh emerald being stored on the head of these Titans, you have to scale these giant beasts in order to transform into Super Sonic, kicking off some of the most phenomenal boss battles in the entire franchise. Is the combat any more engaging than it is in the open world? Not really. Are the bosses heavily reliant on QTE’s? Absolutely. But despite this, fighting these Titans was some of the most fun I’ve ever had on my first time playing a Sonic game. The spectacle is at an all-time high, and does an incredible job of making you feel powerful as you crush these robots a thousand times your size. Blocking Giganto’s lasers with your bear hands and forcing your way out of its jaws; throwing Wyvern into the side of a cliff and guiding its homing missiles back at it; riding atop Knight’s shield and slicing it in half with its own sword. Moments like these truly make you feel like a god, and all of this is enhanced by the incredible songs that play over them. Kellin Quinn, lead singer of Sleeping with Sirens teams up with Tomoya Ohtani to make some of the heaviest, hypest tracks to ever grace the series, amping up the energy to heights never reached before. Hopefully these become a mainstay in the franchise, as I feel these moments that completely blow you away with their quality and presentation are something Sonic could use more of.
So far I’ve only mentioned the first three titan fights, and that’s because those were the ones that impressed me. The final Titan however left me incredibly underwhelmed, boiling down to nothing more than a lackluster reskin of the Giganto fight, with the few new mechanics it adds being either unclear or just plain frustrating. What follows this is a final boss built off the Ikaruga minigame from Chaos Island. When I first played Frontiers I was disappointed by this. It ends the game on a less exciting note, which is made even more underwhelming considering the game had finally landed on a winning formula for Super Sonic bosses. For an enemy they hyped up for so much of the game, it feels as though this wasn’t what was originally planned, and that the team had to add this in late to finish the game in time. Kishimoto has even said on Twitter that he hopes to improve the game’s finale in a future update for Frontiers, but it’s anyone’s guess whether or not this will come to be.
At the time of writing this Frontiers has already dropped two of its three updates and, while they have definitely improved my opinion of the game, I decided to keep this review to the base game instead. Maybe I’ll do another review in the future once all three updates have been released but for now, I think I’ve talked far too much about Sonic Frontiers. It’s a funny game, one that doesn’t quite execute anything it does perfectly. The story contains great moments between characters, but the plot itself feels thin. The controls are a huge upgrade on previous games, but are bogged down by the game’s physics. Combat feels and looks spectacular, but is incredibly simple in reality. The islands themselves are pretty to look at, but those visuals are ruined by the constant pop in. It’s so frustrating, as the game gets so close with so many of its ideas. Some of these only need a few small tweaks to experience vast improvements, which is why I’m so excited for this game’s sequel. Frontiers has the potential to be a blueprint for the future of 3D Sonic, and I can only hope that the team over at Sega realise this and give the developers the time and budget to give this character the love he deserves.
Frontiers is far from perfect, but I would be lying if I said my first playthrough of it wasn’t one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve ever had with a videogame. The game is lacking in most areas, yes, but I feel these incomplete ideas all come together to make a product worth more than the sum of its parts. Sonic Team love to abandon ideas instead of improving on them for following games, but I have a feeling they know what they’ve got here. If I managed to have this much fun despite all of this game’s glaring issues, then I can only imagine how bright the future is for this franchise.
I’ve always been an advocate for the open world formula to be explored by the Sonic series, allowing the player to traverse a vast, open environment at high speeds and use their momentum to traverse the landscape in creative ways. A series of fangames have made attempts at this and, while I haven’t been a fan of their execution, I hoped that one day Sonic Team would give this a go. Sonic Frontiers, however, goes in quite the opposite direction with Sonic’s movement, as well as the designs of the islands themselves. Sonic lacks any realistic sort of momentum on the ground, and is magnetised to it in such a way that makes it incredibly hard to get any air time by launching off the terrain. The rare instances in which you do manage to go airborne are quite fun, allowing you to spam a series of tricks, or transition into a drop dash for a boost of speed while landing, but the circumstances under which this happens are so inconsistent. Even if Sonic didn’t feel so grounded and weightless, the landscape rarely accommodates for this wild sort of experimentation. Yet again, there are areas that do allow for this, but they are spread few and far between in these islands that don’t quite feel “built” for Sonic. Despite all of this, traversing the islands can be a lot of fun at times, which I think can be owed partially to Sonic’s controls and movement.
The majority of Sonic’s moves from the most recent “boost” games are featured in Frontiers, including the homing attack, stomp, quickstep, and of course the boost itself. However, despite so much of this moveset being carried over, Sonic controls far better here than any previous attempts at this formula, with his turning feeling smoother than ever. Even when boosting at top speeds, Sonic can swerve left or right in an instant, making traversing the landscape a breeze; not to mention that Sonic’s most notable new move – the cyloop – requires you to draw circles around objects and enemies, so tight turning is a must. The cyloop plays a huge part in all elements of the open world; from completing puzzles to fighting your foes, drawing circles is frequently the answer to all of your problems. While Sonic’s ground controls are great, his movement in the air is vastly inferior. Jumping kills all of your forward momentum; Sonic can only change direction in an awkward turning arc; the air boost gives little horizontal distance and drops far too quickly. Other than using the games inconsistent collision to fly off of the terrain, the only way to get some decent air time in this game is by launching off of rails which, while admittedly fun, only draws further attention to how much the jump slows you down.
I’ll briefly talk about the story and say I enjoyed it for the most part, finding it to be a massive step up from the last, well, 2 decades of stories in Sonic games. The plot itself is fairly simple, but the moments and conversations we get between characters are the best they’ve ever been. Not much happens in a lot of these cutscenes due to the nature of the game’s story, but the moments we get of Sonic interacting with Tails, Knuckles and Amy feel more human than almost anything the series has to offer. Sonic feels a lot more mature here, providing advice and support to his friends accompanied by some new voice direction that I think fits Roger Craig Smith better than any other game he’s been in thus far. I also really enjoyed Sonic’s interactions with Sage, Eggman’s AI invention and tool to accessing the Starfall Islands. Sage starts off cold and distant but, through Sonic, she learns humanity by witnessing his acts of love, courage and determination. It’s a sweet story that plays out nicely, and provides an interesting kind of villain the series has never seen the likes of before.
Moving onto the islands themselves, each of them features a series of platforming challenges scattered about the world, with platforms, rails, springs and rings floating above the landscape. While these were an odd sight at first, I don’t actually have much of a problem with these visually. These obstacle courses in the sky would frequently catch my attention, and finding my way up there was oftentimes half the fun. What I do have a problem with, however, is the atrocious amount of pop in these objects have. While I understand there will always be this to some degree – especially with a character who moves as fast as Sonic – objects in this game will sometimes pop in that you aren’t exactly far away from. Not only does this incredibly distracting limitation make it harder to decide where you want to go from a distance, it also detracts from an otherwise stunning game. Frontiers is easily the best looking Sonic game to date, with vast, grassy fields; sizzling deserts and volcanic islands in the sky. All of these environments look stunning at times, and are topped off with a day/night cycle than can provide some beautiful lighting. It’s such a shame that the pop in is such a glaring issue, as it can sometimes break my immersion of what is otherwise the prettiest Sonic game ever.
Getting back to the open-world platforming, these mainly consist of platforms, rails and other objects that are constructed into obstacle courses akin to some of the level design featured in previous Sonic games. Completing these provides you with a memory token: the collectible that Sonic uses to save each of his friends from Cyberspace. While these challenges often require no more than a few button presses to complete, they are for the most part short and snappy, rarely overstaying their welcome or trapping you on a challenge for too long. They even take notes from Sonic Lost World, introducing wall-running as a move to the boost controls for the first time. The ability is a lot more forgiving and easier to use than the iteration featured in Lost World, as well as usually being automated to some degree, but is a welcome addition nonetheless. It can be quite fun completing multiple of these platforming challenges at once and trying to maintain the flow: soaring through a dash ring at the end and landing on a nearby rail to complete another challenge, or locking onto a spring and seeing where it takes you. There is a lot of fun to be had in stringing together these inputs so seamlessly, and can turn collecting the resources to save your friends a much easier task. Platforming only comprises a fourth of the activities you’ll be getting up to on the island, though, as there is a lot more at stake than just saving your friends.
To make traversal easier, Sonic Frontiers provides you with a map that can be expanded and filled in by completing a series of puzzles and challenges scattered about the world, which also create rails for fast travel and grant you seeds to upgrade your stats. In a similar vain to the platforming challenges, most of these are quick to complete and never go on for too long, despite what the overly generous timers would have you believe. The difference in quality, however, is vast, with challenges ranging from genuinely fun to insultingly simple. Many are as basic as drawing a cyloop to put out a torch or a pillar of light, or turning on a series of switches with a homing attack. I struggle to decide which is the worst: the hamster wheel that takes nothing but running to complete, or the parrying challenge which presents no real threat considering the parry in Sonic Frontiers has no timing to it at all. Despite there being some seriously weak challenges in the mix, there were a significant number I enjoyed. The panel puzzles are incredibly simple at first and, while they don’t exactly reach enigmatic levels of complexity, I found it quite fun figuring out a route to clear all the blue squares. The basketball minigame is decent, requiring you position yourself correctly to line up your shots. There are quite a few challenges that involve traversing the world in a given amount of time, whether that be making it to a specific point of the map or passing through a series of checkpoints. There were about as many puzzles that I liked as those I disliked, but their pure variety and brief nature meant I rarely ever got sick of them.
The best challenges are easily the ones that are mandatory to the story, as it is clear these had the most effort placed into them. The Ikaruga-inspired hacking minigame is a great deal of fun, along with the bolt-collecting challenge, which takes place over a pit of lava which stops you from staying in one place and forces you to keep moving before the platforms collapse. There are a series of challenges involving the Kocos, like herding them all into one place, or saving them from enemies to bring them back to Knuckles. The skydiving mission on Chaos Island sprung a surprising challenge on me, with a much less forgiving timer that requires quick reactions to floating obstacles to reach the ground in time. These challenges are overall much higher in quality than the optional ones, with a clear amount of extra love being placed into them. They also feature Sonic’s Chaos Emerald dance animation which I loved, taking me back to the days of Sonic’s breakdancing in Generations.
That brings us on to the third element of Sonic Frontiers’ open world. When you’re not completing platforming challenges or completing a variety of puzzles and missions, there’s a good chance you’re engaging with the game’s combat. For the first time in a mainline 3D Sonic game, Sonic himself has his own dedicated combat system – disregarding the Werehog of course. This comes complete with a skill tree, which can be filled in using experience points found as collectibles, obtained by defeating enemies, and built up through completing air tricks. Despite my initial excitement of having such a varied arsenal of combat options for Sonic, I quickly realised how little variety there is to this skill tree. I found moves like the Phantom Rush and Quick Cyloop to be welcome additions to the moveset, but a lot of these attacks feel redundant considering how similar they can be. The Sonic Boom and Cross Slash both fire a series of shockwaves; the Spin Slash and Cyclone Kick spin Sonic in a circle to deal multiple hits of damage to an enemy; the Wild Rush and Loop Kick pull Sonic away from an enemy only to come back in and deal a blow from the side. It feels like the developers focused on flashiness first, rather than creating a combat system with depth to it. The moves themselves also take way too long to connect, with some of them playing out for a couple of seconds at a time while you sit there and watch Sonic attack. As I mentioned when discussing the puzzles, the parry has no timing to it, so most enemies don’t pose much of a threat as Sonic can just hold his glorified guard attack and wait for his high-damage counter prompt to appear.
I’m probably making it sound like I hate the combat in Frontiers, but it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, I think there is a lot of fun to be had at times with it. I wasn’t so interested in the basic enemy interactions, but I think the game’s combat can begin to shine when fighting the Guardians of the islands. These are larger enemies that grant Sonic portal gears, and each one has its own unique abilities and attacks. Some of these are frankly awful, especially considering you may have to fight Guardians more than once to collect the necessary portal gears for each island. Battles like Tank and Shark force you to wait for extended periods of time before you reach their damage phase, where the boss sits there defenceless as you spam a series of random attacks in the hope that you kill them before the waiting game begins again. Strider and Caterpillar play a similar game, but at least with these you have an objective in these phases that can allow you to reach the damage phase quicker. Squid and Fortress, too, play out a similar cycle, but force you to chase them rather than staying in close proximity.
Those are the worst of the Guardians, leaving a fair few that I actually quite enjoyed. Asura – despite its janky collision – was a great deal of fun, adding more obstacles for each of its arms that you run up and destroy, Metal Gear: Rising style. Spider provides a similar spectacle as Sonic skydives towards the enemy in the second phase. It’s quite the set-piece, but can make the fight drag a bit when replayed multiple times. I loved bouncing off the walls of Sumo’s arena to send him flying around the ring, although I wish it put up a bit more of a fight. Ghost might just be my favourite, having you complete platforming challenges to destroy a series of statues while the enemy drains your rings and drops obstacles to impede your progress.
I think the bosses that mesh best with Frontiers combat, however, are the introductory Guardians Ninja and Tower, which appear in multiple different incarnations across the Starfall Islands, each time with more tricks up their sleeve. Ninja starts off simple, using its blade-like arms to swing at Sonic and shield itself, but later on begins to fly, teleport, clone itself and fire laser beams from its eye. It’s a battle that, while very well designed, would be so much better if the parry was punishing with its timing. Tower gets similarly upgraded with each new appearance it takes on. It starts off with a defensive ring and a projectile attack as it hops and hovers around, slamming into the ground to deal damage. It increases its arsenal of attacks and enhances its current ones like Ninja, but what intrigues me with Tower is all the different ways it can be dealt with. It only loses health when you attack its top layer, which can be brought down to Sonic’s level by destroying each of the lower levels. There are many ways in which you can skip this process however, letting you get creative with the ways you defeat the boss. You can get Sonic high up using the environment around you to go straight for the head; you can run up its body when it slams down into the ground; you can quick cyloop its head to destroy all the lower layers at once and not have to climb up again. There are so many ways to tackle it, and this sort of creative freedom is what I wish this game’s encounters had more of.
That brings us onto the fourth and final element of Frontiers’ gameplay loop: Cyberspace. Those gears I mentioned earlier are used to access these portals that transport you to one of thirty traditional Sonic levels, consisting of one of four themes: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary or the new digital city theme. If the re-use of level themes yet again hadn’t already annoyed me, the fact that the majority of these stages borrow level design from Sonic Unleashed, Generations and Adventure 2 really disappointed me. I’m getting tired of the reliance on nostalgia, and would have liked to see some original stages in the game that is supposedly taking the series in a brand new direction. These stages are only dragged down even further by the controls being significantly worse than in the open-world, with Sonic feeling much stiffer than usual. I entered this game prepared to treat Cyberspace as nothing more than a task that would be quick to get through and wouldn’t bog down my enjoyment of the game too much. But in all honesty, I actually found myself looking forward to each of these portals.
When it comes to the level design, the majority of them are pulled straight from good games so are fun to play inherently. I will say that this game’s controls work much better with the Adventure layouts, as this slower Sonic doesn’t lend himself as well to traditional boost levels, but even the Unleashed and Generations rehashes can be fun at times. Later Cyberspace stages begin to provide some entirely new levels, and these are some of the best. Alternate pathways; platforming sections; and overall better utilisation of Frontiers’ moveset. I’ve lost many hours running through these stages again and again, trimming down my time as much as I can with fun exploits like the homing dash. The music in these stages is great, too, as expected for Sonic games at this point. It’s so hard to pick out only a few standouts, but 1-2, 2-7, 3-6 and 4-4 are just a few great examples. The electronic dance music perfectly fits the cybernetic aesthetic of this world, while also being similar enough to each other to give cyberspace its own distinctive sound.
On the topic of music, Frontiers’ features a phenomenal soundtrack. Beyond these EDM-style tracks used in Cyberspace, other areas of the OST impressed me in their own ways, the island themes in particular. Kronos, Ares and Chaos are all made up of seven movements each, moving from one to the next with each Chaos Emerald you collect. These tracks have a beautiful progression, and begin to show more and more of their personality as you discover more of each island. The first movement of Kronos for example sounds incomplete, with chord progressions that wander, directionless, like Sonic in this unfamiliar location. The second and third movements begin to find their footing with piano melodies and chord progressions that, while more complete, still feel isolated and alone without many other instruments surrounding them. The tracks continue to grow and develop as Sonic explores more and more of this mysterious landscape, searching for answers and uncovering the secrets of the ancients. Returning melodies from previous movements are now mixed and paired with new ones, while also being recontextualised by the introduction of some more sinister electronic instruments that lie underneath, removing some of the island’s initial friendliness given its dark backstory. Ares and Chaos follow similar progressions to this, showing personality through their progression that were a joy to experience on my journey through the game.
Of course, I can’t talk about music without talking about the Titan fights. After collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds on an island Sonic must take down the Titan of that island: one of the things keeping his friends trapped in Cyberspace. With each seventh emerald being stored on the head of these Titans, you have to scale these giant beasts in order to transform into Super Sonic, kicking off some of the most phenomenal boss battles in the entire franchise. Is the combat any more engaging than it is in the open world? Not really. Are the bosses heavily reliant on QTE’s? Absolutely. But despite this, fighting these Titans was some of the most fun I’ve ever had on my first time playing a Sonic game. The spectacle is at an all-time high, and does an incredible job of making you feel powerful as you crush these robots a thousand times your size. Blocking Giganto’s lasers with your bear hands and forcing your way out of its jaws; throwing Wyvern into the side of a cliff and guiding its homing missiles back at it; riding atop Knight’s shield and slicing it in half with its own sword. Moments like these truly make you feel like a god, and all of this is enhanced by the incredible songs that play over them. Kellin Quinn, lead singer of Sleeping with Sirens teams up with Tomoya Ohtani to make some of the heaviest, hypest tracks to ever grace the series, amping up the energy to heights never reached before. Hopefully these become a mainstay in the franchise, as I feel these moments that completely blow you away with their quality and presentation are something Sonic could use more of.
So far I’ve only mentioned the first three titan fights, and that’s because those were the ones that impressed me. The final Titan however left me incredibly underwhelmed, boiling down to nothing more than a lackluster reskin of the Giganto fight, with the few new mechanics it adds being either unclear or just plain frustrating. What follows this is a final boss built off the Ikaruga minigame from Chaos Island. When I first played Frontiers I was disappointed by this. It ends the game on a less exciting note, which is made even more underwhelming considering the game had finally landed on a winning formula for Super Sonic bosses. For an enemy they hyped up for so much of the game, it feels as though this wasn’t what was originally planned, and that the team had to add this in late to finish the game in time. Kishimoto has even said on Twitter that he hopes to improve the game’s finale in a future update for Frontiers, but it’s anyone’s guess whether or not this will come to be.
At the time of writing this Frontiers has already dropped two of its three updates and, while they have definitely improved my opinion of the game, I decided to keep this review to the base game instead. Maybe I’ll do another review in the future once all three updates have been released but for now, I think I’ve talked far too much about Sonic Frontiers. It’s a funny game, one that doesn’t quite execute anything it does perfectly. The story contains great moments between characters, but the plot itself feels thin. The controls are a huge upgrade on previous games, but are bogged down by the game’s physics. Combat feels and looks spectacular, but is incredibly simple in reality. The islands themselves are pretty to look at, but those visuals are ruined by the constant pop in. It’s so frustrating, as the game gets so close with so many of its ideas. Some of these only need a few small tweaks to experience vast improvements, which is why I’m so excited for this game’s sequel. Frontiers has the potential to be a blueprint for the future of 3D Sonic, and I can only hope that the team over at Sega realise this and give the developers the time and budget to give this character the love he deserves.
Frontiers is far from perfect, but I would be lying if I said my first playthrough of it wasn’t one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve ever had with a videogame. The game is lacking in most areas, yes, but I feel these incomplete ideas all come together to make a product worth more than the sum of its parts. Sonic Team love to abandon ideas instead of improving on them for following games, but I have a feeling they know what they’ve got here. If I managed to have this much fun despite all of this game’s glaring issues, then I can only imagine how bright the future is for this franchise.
Я случайно очутился в этой с виду непримечательной игрушке и был поглощён с головой в крышесносную неравную борьбу синего ёжика Соника со всей несправедливостью мира. Когда пришёл в себя внутри её сверхзвукового потока экшена, понял, что остановиться невозможно и помогать своим новым друзьям-зверушкам нужно до самого конца потому что кнопки Стоп здесь просто нет. Разработчики не дают ни шанса остаться в стороне от новой угрозы старым знакомым, заворачивая небывалый динамичный экспириенс в остросюжетную историю с харизматичными героями и пачкой лихих интриг. Перед нами нечто большее, чем очередная весёлая адвенчура на вечер. Это настоящая геймплейная притча, которая открывает принципиально-важный взгляд на трудности жизни. Здесь нет места сомнениям и раздумьям. Рецепт победы один - только вперёд, без мысли проиграть!
not a perfect game by any means - the open world is visually boring, the cyberspace levels are all recycled from the previous games and feel uninspired, i was annoyed by the game's tendency to automatically lock onto the nearest object which often caused me to accidentally homing attack onto a spring and end up somewhere i did not want to go, and the segments where the plane changes from 3d to 2d are...rough. but this was a LOT of fun - the platforming feels satisfying and rewarding, the open world is perfect for accommodating sonic's speed, and the combat is varied. i could play this for hours.
Sonic Team did the unthinkable and make a competent video game! Really fun movement, boss fights, great music, and slick platforming even with some of the game's jank and a lot of the sandbox being just "SEGA HIRE this man". Hoping they maintain the momentum in the Final Horizon update
yep still very solid a year later. the free updates add more content which is always welcome, but it's more content that feels like it should've been packaged with the game on release and makes the original ending section look even more unfinished. that being sad, I hope they turn down the difficulty for the next Sonic game because while the base content is baby easy, the Final Horizon is brutally hard. I want a healthy middle ground. and while the new final boss is better and more appropriate than Ikaruga, it's still underwhelming I thought and not really worth the effort. still, it's free and optional so you're not losing much if you go for it. also the new cyberspace stages are completely pointless and you don't need to touch them at all which is fine because my "you NEED to complete everything" brain can't handle its difficulty. so yeah I didn't complete everything for the Final Horizon but like it's whatever I still had fun.
Oh yup, this game still fucking kicks major ass. The Jukebox addition is cool, but those piano movements are still so good. I think I've turned around on the final boss because now I can beat it easily so I think its really fucking cool.
The Eggman/Sage relationship is so well done too. Like Eggman's voice actor really fucking sold that shit, I love stories about family!!!!
The Eggman/Sage relationship is so well done too. Like Eggman's voice actor really fucking sold that shit, I love stories about family!!!!
BANA OYUN DİYE TEKNOLOJİ DEMOSU SATMIŞSINIZ ama müzikler iyi
Addictive gameloop, tight controls, beautiful music, gorgeous visuals, and the best story in Sonic's career. Speed stages feel seriously underbaked, but that's the only major knock against it. And yet.
Warning: Very Mild Spoilers for Update 3: The Final Horizon. You have been warned.
By the time of Sonic Frontiers’ release, the Super Sonic fights that used to be a staple during the first half of Sonic’s 3D ventures have been… underwhelming, to say the least. Colors was the first to disregard the tradition in favor of having Sonic take on Eggman in his base form (plus the wisps). Then after Generations and its infinite homing shots tarnished the legacy of the Super Sonic boss fight, Sonic Team seemed to have dropped the set piece entirely in both Lost World and Forces. Meanwhile, Mania did have a Super Sonic final boss, but honestly, it just doesn’t pack the same punch.
To me, a Super Sonic fight represents an exciting, climatic grand finale that is the culmination of the build-up you saw across your playthrough of a Sonic game. A big finish to celebrate experiencing the joyful thrills or rage-inducing bullshit (depending on your opinion of any particular game) with one last victory lap. SA1 had you taking on a literal god made of water, Sonic’s biggest weakness. SA2 is a dramatic, climatic set-piece with world-ending stakes at hand. Heroes has you beating up a gigantic mech with the REAL SUPER POWER OF TEAMWORK! Even 06 had a perfectly competent final boss that actually worked as intended.
These fights are backed by incredible soundtracks that, unlike most AAA titles, enhance the threat level of the boss itself; instead, they empower you, the player, giving you an edge of superiority and invincibility as you rush headfirst into whatever apocalyptic kaiju Sonic has to beat down.
I am pleased to say that Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers didn’t just revitalise the Super Sonic fights, but made them the greatest in the series.
The Vulnerability of the Weakened Spirit
An element I believe to be crucial to the payoff of the Titan fights in Frontiers itself, which opens up a surprisingly more vulnerable side to the cast’s main leads - Amy, Knuckles and Tails all struggle with finding direction and purpose for their futures in their respective side stories. Through interacting with Sonic and the islands they reside in, however, they gain inspiration, and come to understand what their hearts desire. They finally find the truth of who they’re meant to become, another path they must now walk on.
(haha see what I did there)
Despite his main role as a source of inspiration for them, Sonic isn’t entirely the bulletproof, quip-hungry stereotype he’s been relegated to since Colors anymore. No, this is a complete return to form for him, and with this comes a newfound sense of vulnerability. Sonic quite literally gets his ass punted by Giganto earlier on, an immediate statement of how powerless he is compared to them at his base form. That, combined with his growing cyber-corruption (a consequence of his selflessness for his friends), gives him a more compelling narrative and makes his unsubtly concealed struggles both refreshing and painful to watch. However, much like the friends he inspires, Sonic is strengthened and emboldened by his undying desire to hold the ones he loves and keep them safe.
And this is where Kellin Quinn and the Super Sonic fights come to play.
The Invincibility of the Empowered Soul
Immediately after entering the fight, your ears are greeted by a vaguely similar, yet unfamiliar genre. This is Ohtani and Quinn’s newest innovation to the Super Sonic set piece - heavy metal. Despite the change in genre, the psychological adrenaline boost that a Super Sonic fight theme usually provides is still present in heaps, while also doing a fantastic job making the fight feel epic.
Each Titan theme brings something to the table. Undefeatable is a fast-paced, upfront declaration of invincibility that represents Sonic’s newly empowered state turning the tables in his rematch against Giganto, making the Goliath kaiju seem weak and feeble compared to their first encounter. Break Through it All’s steady build-up and subsequent bombastic delivery of its chorus represents Sonic’s resilience and determination in overcoming Wyvern and its constant bombardment of missiles and tail strikes in a thrilling, sky-high chase. Find Your Flame offers an intense back-and-forth wrestle between rap and vocals as Sonic and Knight engage in a chivalrous joust in the middle of a chasm. Finally, I’m Here (thanks, Final Horizon) is the embodiment of Sonic’s friends character arcs and the journey they experienced in reaching their new resolutions, as Sonic, emboldened by their support, takes on the final obstacles standing in their path in a climatic final fight. Throughout all this, Kellin Quinn just fucking nails his vocal delivery, his voice bringing a more youthful, energetic vibe akin to Johnny Gioeli, and his death metal screams further fuel the intensity of the Super Sonic vibes, giving the Titan themes incredibly strong 2000s shonen anime AMV vibes. All these songs just add to the sense of invincibility that Super Sonic fights used to deliver on.
Thankfully, it isn’t only the music doing the heavy lifting for the Super Sonic fights, because the gameplay holds up well, too. Super Sonic in Frontiers, for the first time since Heroes, actually controls exactly the same as regular Sonic, with the exception that he flies and is invincible now. This means that Titans can essentially be viewed as Guardians+, and what you’ve learnt about the combat system up to that point can be applied accordingly to these massive behemoths as well. Sure, this does mean that the fights can easily be cheesed with certain strategies, but that doesn’t quite diminish their overall quality to the point where it becomes a genuine flaw. Giganto especially, in compliance with its theme of becoming the hunted after previously being the hunter, is fun combo food where you basically have free reign to freestyle with your combat combos, serving as an incredibly memorable first boss fight to showcase your invincibility and basically being the symbol of this newly reinvented type of Super Sonic battle.
As if Sonic Team knew about how shonen these fights were going to get, they also introduced mid-fight cutscenes and power-ups ala DBZ, as well as tons of set piece QTEs where all you do is either mash the attack button or hit it at the perfect timing. This would normally be a blight but Unleashed, Colors and Forces did it with their boss fights too, so if I’m not complaining about them there, I won’t complain about them here. That being said, Frontiers more than compensates by making these set-pieces the coolest fucking things you’ve ever seen Super Sonic do ever. Sonic casually lifting a giant laser beam above his head and flinging it away effortlessly? Sick. Sonic stopping the tracks of Wyvern through sheer force and strength alone? Awesome. Sonic taking Knight’s gigantic blade for himself and using it to slice it in half? Fucking incredible. Truly makes Super Sonic feel like an unstoppable, invincible force. Overall, Titan fights in Frontiers just straight up have the most breathtaking and beautiful cinematography in the franchise, hands down, contributing to how groundbreaking these fights were in general.
For all of Sonic Frontiers’ many, many flaws, how it reinvigorated and brought Super Sonic fights back on the map will always be an obvious highlight and an incredibly positive sign of things to come with the new direction this game takes. May Frontiers 2 not shit itself on arrival.
Final rating: 7.5/10
Focus: How Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers revived the Super Sonic boss fights.
Theme: Vulnerability and Invincibility
By the time of Sonic Frontiers’ release, the Super Sonic fights that used to be a staple during the first half of Sonic’s 3D ventures have been… underwhelming, to say the least. Colors was the first to disregard the tradition in favor of having Sonic take on Eggman in his base form (plus the wisps). Then after Generations and its infinite homing shots tarnished the legacy of the Super Sonic boss fight, Sonic Team seemed to have dropped the set piece entirely in both Lost World and Forces. Meanwhile, Mania did have a Super Sonic final boss, but honestly, it just doesn’t pack the same punch.
To me, a Super Sonic fight represents an exciting, climatic grand finale that is the culmination of the build-up you saw across your playthrough of a Sonic game. A big finish to celebrate experiencing the joyful thrills or rage-inducing bullshit (depending on your opinion of any particular game) with one last victory lap. SA1 had you taking on a literal god made of water, Sonic’s biggest weakness. SA2 is a dramatic, climatic set-piece with world-ending stakes at hand. Heroes has you beating up a gigantic mech with the REAL SUPER POWER OF TEAMWORK! Even 06 had a perfectly competent final boss that actually worked as intended.
These fights are backed by incredible soundtracks that, unlike most AAA titles, enhance the threat level of the boss itself; instead, they empower you, the player, giving you an edge of superiority and invincibility as you rush headfirst into whatever apocalyptic kaiju Sonic has to beat down.
I am pleased to say that Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers didn’t just revitalise the Super Sonic fights, but made them the greatest in the series.
The Vulnerability of the Weakened Spirit
An element I believe to be crucial to the payoff of the Titan fights in Frontiers itself, which opens up a surprisingly more vulnerable side to the cast’s main leads - Amy, Knuckles and Tails all struggle with finding direction and purpose for their futures in their respective side stories. Through interacting with Sonic and the islands they reside in, however, they gain inspiration, and come to understand what their hearts desire. They finally find the truth of who they’re meant to become, another path they must now walk on.
(haha see what I did there)
Despite his main role as a source of inspiration for them, Sonic isn’t entirely the bulletproof, quip-hungry stereotype he’s been relegated to since Colors anymore. No, this is a complete return to form for him, and with this comes a newfound sense of vulnerability. Sonic quite literally gets his ass punted by Giganto earlier on, an immediate statement of how powerless he is compared to them at his base form. That, combined with his growing cyber-corruption (a consequence of his selflessness for his friends), gives him a more compelling narrative and makes his unsubtly concealed struggles both refreshing and painful to watch. However, much like the friends he inspires, Sonic is strengthened and emboldened by his undying desire to hold the ones he loves and keep them safe.
And this is where Kellin Quinn and the Super Sonic fights come to play.
The Invincibility of the Empowered Soul
Immediately after entering the fight, your ears are greeted by a vaguely similar, yet unfamiliar genre. This is Ohtani and Quinn’s newest innovation to the Super Sonic set piece - heavy metal. Despite the change in genre, the psychological adrenaline boost that a Super Sonic fight theme usually provides is still present in heaps, while also doing a fantastic job making the fight feel epic.
Each Titan theme brings something to the table. Undefeatable is a fast-paced, upfront declaration of invincibility that represents Sonic’s newly empowered state turning the tables in his rematch against Giganto, making the Goliath kaiju seem weak and feeble compared to their first encounter. Break Through it All’s steady build-up and subsequent bombastic delivery of its chorus represents Sonic’s resilience and determination in overcoming Wyvern and its constant bombardment of missiles and tail strikes in a thrilling, sky-high chase. Find Your Flame offers an intense back-and-forth wrestle between rap and vocals as Sonic and Knight engage in a chivalrous joust in the middle of a chasm. Finally, I’m Here (thanks, Final Horizon) is the embodiment of Sonic’s friends character arcs and the journey they experienced in reaching their new resolutions, as Sonic, emboldened by their support, takes on the final obstacles standing in their path in a climatic final fight. Throughout all this, Kellin Quinn just fucking nails his vocal delivery, his voice bringing a more youthful, energetic vibe akin to Johnny Gioeli, and his death metal screams further fuel the intensity of the Super Sonic vibes, giving the Titan themes incredibly strong 2000s shonen anime AMV vibes. All these songs just add to the sense of invincibility that Super Sonic fights used to deliver on.
Thankfully, it isn’t only the music doing the heavy lifting for the Super Sonic fights, because the gameplay holds up well, too. Super Sonic in Frontiers, for the first time since Heroes, actually controls exactly the same as regular Sonic, with the exception that he flies and is invincible now. This means that Titans can essentially be viewed as Guardians+, and what you’ve learnt about the combat system up to that point can be applied accordingly to these massive behemoths as well. Sure, this does mean that the fights can easily be cheesed with certain strategies, but that doesn’t quite diminish their overall quality to the point where it becomes a genuine flaw. Giganto especially, in compliance with its theme of becoming the hunted after previously being the hunter, is fun combo food where you basically have free reign to freestyle with your combat combos, serving as an incredibly memorable first boss fight to showcase your invincibility and basically being the symbol of this newly reinvented type of Super Sonic battle.
As if Sonic Team knew about how shonen these fights were going to get, they also introduced mid-fight cutscenes and power-ups ala DBZ, as well as tons of set piece QTEs where all you do is either mash the attack button or hit it at the perfect timing. This would normally be a blight but Unleashed, Colors and Forces did it with their boss fights too, so if I’m not complaining about them there, I won’t complain about them here. That being said, Frontiers more than compensates by making these set-pieces the coolest fucking things you’ve ever seen Super Sonic do ever. Sonic casually lifting a giant laser beam above his head and flinging it away effortlessly? Sick. Sonic stopping the tracks of Wyvern through sheer force and strength alone? Awesome. Sonic taking Knight’s gigantic blade for himself and using it to slice it in half? Fucking incredible. Truly makes Super Sonic feel like an unstoppable, invincible force. Overall, Titan fights in Frontiers just straight up have the most breathtaking and beautiful cinematography in the franchise, hands down, contributing to how groundbreaking these fights were in general.
For all of Sonic Frontiers’ many, many flaws, how it reinvigorated and brought Super Sonic fights back on the map will always be an obvious highlight and an incredibly positive sign of things to come with the new direction this game takes. May Frontiers 2 not shit itself on arrival.
Final rating: 7.5/10
Focus: How Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers revived the Super Sonic boss fights.
Theme: Vulnerability and Invincibility
I've been through the Meta Era of Sonic, and let me tell you, that era was easily the worst of the franchise for me. Sure, you can argue that the Dark Era had arguably worse games, and I wouldn't even necessarily disagree with you. What has always kept me attached with this series, through it's ups and downs, was it's sincerity. Want a to have a secret government weapon be a black hedgehog? Give him a backstory where is friend gets shot! Wanna turn Sonic to turn into a werehog? Sure, make the whole game a globe trotting adventure too! Wanna give him a sword? Gotta make sure he's got a kick ass suit of armor at the end!
This is what draws me to Sonic. In an era where Weaton style humor and constant self deprecating humor has infested nearly every franchise, having a series that wears it's heart on it's sleeves is really refreshing.
Sonic Frontiers, after years of constant meta humor and making fun of itself, felt like Sonic Team's first real attempt at being sincere again for me. Sure, the game isn't perfect; pop in is insane, the cyperspace levels are rehashed assets, and the cutscenes are some of the worst in the series, but what kept me going was just how much the game was unashamed to let Sonic be COOL again. Sonic and the cast FEEL like characters, instead of one-note jokes, the music is a perfect blend of cheesy metal tracks and some of the best techno I've heard in a video game since the 2000s. And the updates (for the most part) genuinely tried to fix a large part of the issues people had with the controls, which I admire a lot.
The game is far from perfect, but I don't want to just call it a step in the right direction. I think this game is just pretty good on it's own. And it did the one thing I find most important in a Sonic game; It isn't ashamed of being a Sonic game.
This is what draws me to Sonic. In an era where Weaton style humor and constant self deprecating humor has infested nearly every franchise, having a series that wears it's heart on it's sleeves is really refreshing.
Sonic Frontiers, after years of constant meta humor and making fun of itself, felt like Sonic Team's first real attempt at being sincere again for me. Sure, the game isn't perfect; pop in is insane, the cyperspace levels are rehashed assets, and the cutscenes are some of the worst in the series, but what kept me going was just how much the game was unashamed to let Sonic be COOL again. Sonic and the cast FEEL like characters, instead of one-note jokes, the music is a perfect blend of cheesy metal tracks and some of the best techno I've heard in a video game since the 2000s. And the updates (for the most part) genuinely tried to fix a large part of the issues people had with the controls, which I admire a lot.
The game is far from perfect, but I don't want to just call it a step in the right direction. I think this game is just pretty good on it's own. And it did the one thing I find most important in a Sonic game; It isn't ashamed of being a Sonic game.
Fun for like, 30 minutes.
And then you realize the entire game will be the exact f@$#ing same as those 30 minutes.
Least innovative, most boring Nintendo game I've ever touched.
And then you realize the entire game will be the exact f@$#ing same as those 30 minutes.
Least innovative, most boring Nintendo game I've ever touched.
I completed The Final Horizon update for Sonic Frontiers. It’s a good but brutal update. I know the game is kicking a lot of peoples ass right now, it’s almost like an endurance test. Morio Kishimoto, director of Sonic Frontiers, has a history of making extremely easy Sonic games (Colors, Forces etc) and Frontiers is his last chance, he had said on twitter if this game fails he will be replaced. So he really took to fans criticisms and suggestions for Update 2 and 3. Update 2 had added a spindash with momentum, which was the biggest request at the time. Update 3 tackled the other biggest request, challenge. Many players complained the game was far too easy, and they were right. So it seems Kishimoto worked very hard with this update to revamp this entire island of Ouranos with trials and bosses that are extremely difficult and require failure to succeed. There is some bullshit here but most of it is designed okay, it’s nothing remarkable but it is extremely satisfying when you complete something. This updates main goal though, is to add an ending to the game, something it succeeded in above and beyond, the final boss and ending is more than worth playing through the extremely difficult update, you get to hear 2 new vocal tracks and see Super Saiyan 2 Sonic while fighting a crazy ass boss, it’s a great time. It’s the first time since about 2008 Sonic has actually felt raw and sincere, and not cringe.
I don’t think this update will change my score of the game (3.5/5) but it certainly will make me remember it as a good Sonic game. If you like Sonic pick the game up on sale, but beware of the crazy difficulty.
I don’t think this update will change my score of the game (3.5/5) but it certainly will make me remember it as a good Sonic game. If you like Sonic pick the game up on sale, but beware of the crazy difficulty.
É sem dúvidas a evolução que a franquia precisava, um grande playground controlando o Sonic é simplesmente muito divertido.
O final deixa a desejar um pouco, claramente o jogo ficou sem tempo de desenvolvimento e tiveram que rushar, se tivesse mais polimento no jogo seria 10/10
A história teve boas intenções, mas ficou muito bobinho, mesmo assim deu pra passar a mensagem que queriam, eu quero a sage como uma personagem recorrente agora.
O final deixa a desejar um pouco, claramente o jogo ficou sem tempo de desenvolvimento e tiveram que rushar, se tivesse mais polimento no jogo seria 10/10
A história teve boas intenções, mas ficou muito bobinho, mesmo assim deu pra passar a mensagem que queriam, eu quero a sage como uma personagem recorrente agora.
Alright let’s 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 it’s a game that I have no strong opinions on one way or the other. I don’t really hate Sonic Frontiers, but I am not really a fan of it either? It’s a very weird game that for some reason is called the pinnacle of Sonic even at release. It baffles me, I won’t judge but I’m 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 there’s first of all no need, second I think it could make a good video and lastly, I don’t have the energy to re review a game that I don’t 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 didn’t really care about Frontiers, this intrigued me, I don’t 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, I’m leaning towards a negative side. This is gonna be a long, negative ass review of Frontiers after launch, I’m 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, there’s a new jukebox mode that contains songs from across the series, I like this, as someone who doesn’t really care about Frontiers music, it’s 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 isn’t very good in my opinion, it’s feels so limited since you can’t even use it in cyberspace, it only has a limited pool of filters and, nothing else. No pose’s, stickers, other unique filters or anything else, it’s 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, it’s fine. Again I have to stress this is a fine update, but it’s 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 there’s 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.
(There’s also extreme mode which I haven’t unlocked but from I heard it’s quite bad despite the few neat additions it adds)
Update 2: Sonic’s birthday bash (He died when he turned 15! F in the chat 😔)
Update 2 was the update that I kinda brushed over, something that I didn’t really know what to expect, and it surprised me and how good it was, there’s 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, it’s a game that I could come back to if I’m feeling up for it.
Update 2 shakes up a lot of things, the birthday stuff is quite superfluous, it’s nothing then a cosmetic thing which I don’t really care about. But everything in this update doesn’t miss, I’m 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 it’s using Frontiers whack ass world design to its benefit whole providing a fun challenge, it’s 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 isn’t 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 I’d approach it.
There’s also some fun new challenging Koco stuff that increase your boost meter and a new game plus mode, while it sadly doesn’t increase the difficulty, but I wouldn’t say it’s knock on adding this since most new game plus games doesn’t even do this, but it’s something that could have made it gone the extra mile. So on the whole, update 2 boosts my enjoyment of Frontiers considerable, let’s hope update 3 can stick the landing.
Update 3: The Final Animal Crossing Horizon
What the hell
Update 3, kinda broke me, it’s everything that i love and hate about Frontiers combined into a mess. A mess that I can’t 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 you’re insane like me. This a big deal, along with promising to fix Frontiers polarising ending.
See, I didn’t 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 that’s 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 he’s 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, it’s a new alternate timeline/“What if” 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! There’s a lot of great moments, mostly in the final boss and ending but everything else is just what I hate about Frontiers plot, it’s 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 doesn’t 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 couldn’t vibe with it. There’s a ton of references that don’t 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? It’s just silly. But the revised slow story is the least of my problems.
Okay, let’s talk about what I like. Cyberspace is pretty cool! It still sorta reuses stages but it’s fun! The final boss while not without its flaws, it’s good! Has a ton of hype moments as well especially with that new shiny form we get a split second of. Very nice! What’s 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!
I’m 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 they’re 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. It’s completely silly given how she’s smacking people with cards, riding a motorcycle with cards and gliding with cards and the Hammer gets, is a parry. I don’t 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, she’s the only one that doesn’t 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??? It’s 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 doesn’t 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 don’t know, it’s not really fun to use, and it’s 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, I’m harping on this because Tails isn’t much of a very interesting character to play as, he can throw wrench’s like a Hammer Bro, he’s packing heat like Shadow, and that’s about it!
The biggest issue with all these characters is that they start you off at square one, you’ve got level 1 speed, defence and absolute no stats, not even the cyloop. You essentially have to do a whole game’s worth of upgrading on one Island. I do like the idea of finding experience points through the Koco but it’s just not fun to do this, especially given how in the night sections while there’s a comet storm, the game showers you with Koco and such, so it’s pointless. What all 3 characters also suck at is combat, they are not built for combat, Tails especially given how he doesn’t even have the homing attack. They can’t go combo mad on the enemies and only have a dinky 3 hit combo along with maybe an additional attack in you’re lucky. I don’t know if this was an intentional but you have to just, waddle away when you see an enemy. It’s 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 you’ve learned throughout the game to the ultimate test. It’s drawn out to all hell. Of course, I can’t 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, it’s 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 we’ve seen it done well in this game with the new Koco and Action chain challenges So what happened here? I’ll give props for less automation and such but whenever there’s fair and hard platforming challenge, there’s 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) don’t have any pick me ups, if you mess up, it’s back to the beginning! And like, for some games like the 3D Mario games, you signed up for that shit since it’s the end of the game, you know that’s you’re getting into a tough as nails challenge that’s kinda unfair. But with this, I don’t get why it’s like this, again it’s 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 it’s 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, that’s what the final horizon is. It’s not even like the Adventure Packs from Unleashed, since there it’s 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 you’re left with an unsatisfactory challenge that isn’t 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 you’ve 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, it’s 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 don’t care for in this update. I’ll 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 can’t even play as them outside of the DLC area, which was disappointing at first but seeing how they play I’m 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, it’s 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, there’s a lot of great ideas here and concepts, but there’s always a catch and in this case, there’s 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 it’s disappointing to see Sonic fall into the same things and fans kinda just, eat it up.
Let me clear, I don’t wanna be the fun police like a lot of Sonic detractors are who aren’t even fans of the franchise yet still check it out knowing they’ll 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, it’s shortcomings yet celebrate when it’s 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 UK’s 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 wouldn’t 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 I’m 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 it’s 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 it’s a game that I have no strong opinions on one way or the other. I don’t really hate Sonic Frontiers, but I am not really a fan of it either? It’s a very weird game that for some reason is called the pinnacle of Sonic even at release. It baffles me, I won’t judge but I’m 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 there’s first of all no need, second I think it could make a good video and lastly, I don’t have the energy to re review a game that I don’t 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 didn’t really care about Frontiers, this intrigued me, I don’t 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, I’m leaning towards a negative side. This is gonna be a long, negative ass review of Frontiers after launch, I’m 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, there’s a new jukebox mode that contains songs from across the series, I like this, as someone who doesn’t really care about Frontiers music, it’s 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 isn’t very good in my opinion, it’s feels so limited since you can’t even use it in cyberspace, it only has a limited pool of filters and, nothing else. No pose’s, stickers, other unique filters or anything else, it’s 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, it’s fine. Again I have to stress this is a fine update, but it’s 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 there’s 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.
(There’s also extreme mode which I haven’t unlocked but from I heard it’s quite bad despite the few neat additions it adds)
Update 2: Sonic’s birthday bash (He died when he turned 15! F in the chat 😔)
Update 2 was the update that I kinda brushed over, something that I didn’t really know what to expect, and it surprised me and how good it was, there’s 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, it’s a game that I could come back to if I’m feeling up for it.
Update 2 shakes up a lot of things, the birthday stuff is quite superfluous, it’s nothing then a cosmetic thing which I don’t really care about. But everything in this update doesn’t miss, I’m 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 it’s using Frontiers whack ass world design to its benefit whole providing a fun challenge, it’s 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 isn’t 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 I’d approach it.
There’s also some fun new challenging Koco stuff that increase your boost meter and a new game plus mode, while it sadly doesn’t increase the difficulty, but I wouldn’t say it’s knock on adding this since most new game plus games doesn’t even do this, but it’s something that could have made it gone the extra mile. So on the whole, update 2 boosts my enjoyment of Frontiers considerable, let’s hope update 3 can stick the landing.
Update 3: The Final Animal Crossing Horizon
What the hell
Update 3, kinda broke me, it’s everything that i love and hate about Frontiers combined into a mess. A mess that I can’t 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 you’re insane like me. This a big deal, along with promising to fix Frontiers polarising ending.
See, I didn’t 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 that’s 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 he’s 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, it’s a new alternate timeline/“What if” 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! There’s a lot of great moments, mostly in the final boss and ending but everything else is just what I hate about Frontiers plot, it’s 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 doesn’t 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 couldn’t vibe with it. There’s a ton of references that don’t 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? It’s just silly. But the revised slow story is the least of my problems.
Okay, let’s talk about what I like. Cyberspace is pretty cool! It still sorta reuses stages but it’s fun! The final boss while not without its flaws, it’s good! Has a ton of hype moments as well especially with that new shiny form we get a split second of. Very nice! What’s 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!
I’m 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 they’re 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. It’s completely silly given how she’s smacking people with cards, riding a motorcycle with cards and gliding with cards and the Hammer gets, is a parry. I don’t 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, she’s the only one that doesn’t 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??? It’s 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 doesn’t 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 don’t know, it’s not really fun to use, and it’s 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, I’m harping on this because Tails isn’t much of a very interesting character to play as, he can throw wrench’s like a Hammer Bro, he’s packing heat like Shadow, and that’s about it!
The biggest issue with all these characters is that they start you off at square one, you’ve got level 1 speed, defence and absolute no stats, not even the cyloop. You essentially have to do a whole game’s worth of upgrading on one Island. I do like the idea of finding experience points through the Koco but it’s just not fun to do this, especially given how in the night sections while there’s a comet storm, the game showers you with Koco and such, so it’s pointless. What all 3 characters also suck at is combat, they are not built for combat, Tails especially given how he doesn’t even have the homing attack. They can’t go combo mad on the enemies and only have a dinky 3 hit combo along with maybe an additional attack in you’re lucky. I don’t know if this was an intentional but you have to just, waddle away when you see an enemy. It’s 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 you’ve learned throughout the game to the ultimate test. It’s drawn out to all hell. Of course, I can’t 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, it’s 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 we’ve seen it done well in this game with the new Koco and Action chain challenges So what happened here? I’ll give props for less automation and such but whenever there’s fair and hard platforming challenge, there’s 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) don’t have any pick me ups, if you mess up, it’s back to the beginning! And like, for some games like the 3D Mario games, you signed up for that shit since it’s the end of the game, you know that’s you’re getting into a tough as nails challenge that’s kinda unfair. But with this, I don’t get why it’s like this, again it’s 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 it’s 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, that’s what the final horizon is. It’s not even like the Adventure Packs from Unleashed, since there it’s 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 you’re left with an unsatisfactory challenge that isn’t 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 you’ve 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, it’s 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 don’t care for in this update. I’ll 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 can’t even play as them outside of the DLC area, which was disappointing at first but seeing how they play I’m 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, it’s 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, there’s a lot of great ideas here and concepts, but there’s always a catch and in this case, there’s 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 it’s disappointing to see Sonic fall into the same things and fans kinda just, eat it up.
Let me clear, I don’t wanna be the fun police like a lot of Sonic detractors are who aren’t even fans of the franchise yet still check it out knowing they’ll 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, it’s shortcomings yet celebrate when it’s 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 UK’s 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 wouldn’t 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 I’m 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 it’s gonna be great for most, but I need to rest damnit.
A miserable slog to play, 20+ hours of running around boring fields doing busywork to collect a billion different progression tokens. When it was announced I joked it looked like they dropped sonic in an unreal demo, and then that's exactly what it feels like. I like a lot of the character writing and if the story had fully landed for me I'd probably like the game anyway, but then the climax is a big wet fart. The "final boss fight" is a joke; it's very transparent that the devs played NieR Automata, thought they could pull off something similar, and did NOT have the story chops for it. Please just go play one of the many good platinum games (or sonic adventure 1+2 which are miles better than this).
I've heard this described as the fidget cube of videogames, and I think that's the undeniable summary of this experience - right down to all those times you accidentally drop the cube and curse in anger as you lean down to pick it up.
If I were rate this one on enjoyment alone, I'd probably be more inclined to give this one a 4/5. Critically, though...despite the risks taken, and the effort to differentiate itself from every prior Sonic title, it does just end up falling back into the middle of the road (a notoriously bad place for a hedgehog to be).
GAMEPLAY
The big selling point of Frontiers is the "Open-Zone" setup. Not an outright open world, but a set of 5 (well, 4 and a half) islands that Sonic can explore at will. Freedom of movement is the main appeal, and finally being able to do this in a Sonic game for what feels like the first time since Sonic Adventure really took me back. Picking a direction, blasting away at top speed and seeing where I end up, blissful. It's the baseline of what I want to feel from a Sonic game, and one that I rarely get to actually experience.
Of course, the manner of Sonic's controls have always been hotly debated by the ever-warring fandom. Sonic Team had the perfect solution: do it yourself! Sonic has a number of sliders to tune his handling to virtually whatever you'd like; regardless of whether it's actually remotely controllable or not. People who set his default running speed to maximum were gonna be in a rude awakening when they get to the parkour challenges, but they're completely free to do so. I had the luxury of playing close to a year post-launch, though; Sonic had harsh jump deceleration to start with, losing all momentum when jumping. Fortunately, Sonic Team listened to fans and let you turn that shit off - and it really, really helps.
So, you've got a Sonic you can tune to your liking, and huge areas to let him lose in. And yet, the game begins by almost immediately dumping you into a short, linear level with a completely different, fixed control scheme. Cyberspace levels are thrown into the experience to provide more traditional Sonic levels, and I appreciate and understand why; it's far easier to break them off into separate instances than build the levels naturally into the open world (which there is usually at least one instance of per island, so I'm glad they actually gave that a go). I also understand why the control scheme is different; the levels themselves rely a lot on scripted sequences that could potentially break if the player has set their acceleration outside of the accepted parameters. Unfortunately, while I understand the choices made, it doesn't stop Cyberspace from being a source of frustation, bordering on total misery. Sonic's turning circle becomes immense, and the levels themselves are automated to the point of failure, with the homing attack frequently failing to lock on when it needs to, and just generally being clumsy. One level even adds a drift mechanic that is completely embarassing in how much worse it is compared to previous games.
Moving away from Cyberspace, one other massive shakeup to the formula is the addition of a real, proper combat system. We haven't had such a thing since the dreadful Unleashed Werehog stages, and fortunately it's not nearly as limited. That said, it's no Devil May Cry either. Sonic can still homing attack to kill or notably injure the small fry, but larger enemies and minibosses will require much mashing of the X button. As you gain skill points, you can expand Sonic's reportoire to include dodge attacks, Rider Kicks, and just straight up shooting lasers from his shoes or something. There's enough variety in there to make it so that the varying enemy types may only be susceptible to specific moves, but admittedly there's also little stopping you from just persistently mashing X against at least half of the encounters.
Further adding to Sonic's moveset is the Cyloop. Holding Y will leave a trail behind Sonic, and allow you to draw circles, Pokémon Ranger-style, around enemies. This is often best suited to breaking an enemy's guard, but can also be used in the open world to activate events, solve puzzles, and (if you're persistent) gather a limitless supply of rings and other important resources. It's a neat trick, although I find it cuts out far too easily whenever you hit the slightest imperfection in the floor. That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing such a move become a more permanent part of Sonic's skillset - where applicable.
At the heart of it, Sonic Frontiers is a big ol' collectathon. Each of the hundreds of grind rails and platforms that awkwardly pop into existence as soon as you're 10ft away lead to a small bounty of riches. Rings, obviously, still keep Sonic from dying to damage. However, depending on your ever-increasing stats, Sonic can both hold more maximum rings, as well as lose less of them when taking damage, more akin to a health bar. As well as that, you can find seeds that raise Sonic's attack and defense, skill points to unlock new moves, and memory tokens; needed to advance the plot. That's not forgetting about Emerald Vault keys, for getting the Chaos Emeralds, and Portal Gears from downed minibosses for playing the Cyberspace levels (the main source of the aforementioned Vault keys). That's a lot to collect, and sounds like a challenging, if time consuming gameplay structure. Of course, if you don't actually have any interest in playing the game, Big the Cat has you covered. Yes, if you collect enough purple coins, you can go fishing, and use your gains from that to just buy everything - everything - and theroetically max out Sonic's stats and get every mandatory collectible to beat the story within, say, an hour or so total of fishing. It's such a bizarre way to break the game that they might as well have admitted "Use this if you're a games journalist with a tight deadline!".
The fishing itself, by the way, is mindless - essentially a rhythm game without the rhythm. Cast the rod (doesn't matter where), wait for a bite (won't take more than 10 seconds), tap A, tap A again when the ring is within the red areas. Boom, fish. One part of getting 100% is to catch every fish at every spot, but that won't even be hard because it's as if the game's rigged to not give you any duplicates until you've 100%ed a fishing spot. The key rewards for fishing that you can't get anywhere else are the Egg Memos. They're simply snippets of random trivia, as well as Eggman's perspective on current events. It's mostly a checklist of references and fanservice, but more - much more - on that later.
So, the game plays fine, has a decent smattering of content, but not all of it good. A lot of it is just simple stimulation - pass by a dash pad or spring, get distracted, and get taken on a brief rollercoaster ride with high speed and minimal input. But the freedom of movement is key here, and that freedom to just go anywhere and forcibly glitch yourself up anything is simply liberating, which is very Sonic. Using the grind rails and springs is fun and all, but the real big brain gaming is finding the way to sequence break these pathways and take the collectible by force. It's what made those first two islands, in all their generic appearance, a real good time in my experience.
Sorry, I specified "the first two islands" just then, didn't I? Yeah, that whole "freedom of movement" thing sadly gets shut down by the third island, where the game decides that Cyberspace didn't fill its mandatory 2D quota and forces almost every single one of the hundreds of platforming sections on the island to lock Sonic into a 2D perspective. Doing so shuts down most of the controls, including the combat system, and stops you from leaving without finding some gap in the platforms to break out of it. This horrible downgrade in quality hangs over the third island almost entirely, and a good chunk of the fifth island as well. I really hated my time with these 2D segments, and it made me less inclined to collect every memory token as I had for the first two islands (but it didn't stop me in the end). To make an open world and liberating Sonic, only to shackle him back to these confines so soon after really makes me wonder what the circumstances surrounding this decision was.
This gameplay loop culminates in finding each of the Chaos Emeralds on each island(save one). Once all Chaos Emeralds on an island are obtained, you get to challenge the island's boss. Said boss holds the last Emerald, and when you finally grab it, you get to engage the boss as Super Sonic. On paper, this is a really fun implementation of Super Sonic, as opposed to a reward for clearing (often annoying) special stages, or only showing up in the final battle. It's a shame that Super Sonic remains unusable in the open world, but it's not like you really need it. You sure need it for the boss fights though, because they're proper slugfests. They unfortunately aren't the most inspiring fights, though - despite the soundtrack's best efforts. Mashing X remains the most worthwhile tactic until the boss chooses to throw an attack that you can parry - only then is the major damage dealt. Some bosses unfortunately tend to spam attacks that Sonic needs to do a quick time event to avoid or deflect, and some of the things they throw at you are downright confusing in how to deal with it. The spectacle is appreciated, but I had more fun watching other people do these fights than playing them for myself. The ring limit may seem like a tricky thing to deal with, but seeing as you can gain infinite rings before the right by holding Y and running in circles, it's really no big deal.
And before I wrap this up, there are a few little weird breaks in the formula scattered throughout the main story. These range from herding children, to mowing the lawn(seriously), to playing an actual sh'mup(seriously). They're usually kinda clunky, but at least don't outstay their lack-of-welcome. Except pinball. Oh, I hope you like pinball.
Well, that's more than enough about the gameplay - it's got grand ideas but a confused execution of them in the back half of the game, which is pretty disappointing.
STORY
I won't get too into spoilers, but I can describe how the story made me feel - pretty unimpressed. The premise is as basic as it gets - Sonic and co. get stuck on a strange land, and everyone else gets imprisoned while Sonic alone has to save their asses, while guided by a mysterious voice telling them to kill all the big stompy gits. All while a weird cyber-ghost girl keeps wishing death upon Sonic to his face every 10 minutes. It just sets up the gameplay loop pretty directly, and you probably already guessed where it's going as you get to reading this part. There's nothing new or inventive here, and I can't say I'm even disappointed - the deeper a Sonic story tries to go, the more awful is usually is.
Where the real appeal and attention is directed is the writing itself. Ian Flynn is no new name to Sonic, but for his first game rodeo it's not a bad effort. Not a bad effort, but I have a handful of bones to pick nonetheless. Flynn generally has a good grasp on when to be sincere and when to throw in the goofs - an increasingly difficult challenge for most fiction these days, and there are a few stumbles, but I appreciated that not every serious moment was clobbered by a crowbar layered in irony. If you're particularly jaded on Sonic, it might even seem ridiculous how serious the story takes itself sometimes, but I appreciate that the risk was taken. However, the dialogue - particularly the more optional "side stories" - are also heavily, heavily weighed down with a thick layer of fanservice. You're telling me Sonic and friends touch down on Unreal Engine 4 default landscape, and they all immediately get reminded of virtually every single previous game? I can appreciate an attempt at real continuity, and no hate to anyone out there who ate it all up, but the references were laid on way too thick. I'd settle for maybe a third of the total random call-backs to past games that made their way into the script - and sure, you can also keep the incredibly heavy handed attempts to force Tangle and Sticks into canon - but they really stretch to try to bring up the older games and it really took me out of it after a while.
"Heavy-handed" can also be used to describe Flynn's attempts to wrangle the characterisation of Sonic and co. back in a direction resembling what the fans screaming at the writing since Colors wanted - and it's amusing how visibly hard Flynn is turning the wheel here. Tails in particular gets the blunt end of it, even blurting out "Then I'm wildly inconsistent!" verbatim when he brings up his infamous character regression in Forces, versus his heroism in Adventure. It manages to highlight the problems such moments created for these characters, without resorting to relentless irony and/or outright retconning. Eggman also gets a particularly unique character arc, though it's so disconnected from other media, and most of the game itself, that it's hard to really talk about without going full spoilers. I like where it could be going, I only hope that future games follow up on this change.
PRESENTATION
Of course, a story - and the rest of the game - rely strongly on how its presented. Frontiers, visually, is rather unremarkable. It's not an ugly game (or at least, normally - I may have had to turn all settings to minimum to get it to run) but there's still something almost double-A about this game, in spite of the price, runtime and Sonic's legacy. Lighting isn't optimal, and the environments go for a low-budget realism look that both clashes hard with Sonic as well as all the grind rails and springs thrown into them. The worlds may be fun to run through, but they're sure not pretty to look at. Even looking back at Sonic Unleashed - the last real AAA Sonic game - there's just so much more life in the animations and environments. Even going into Cyberspace, it's almost entirely comprised of regurgitated Generations/Forces assets. As such, every single level is either Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary, or assorted stuff from Forces. It's pretty distracting given that every level is also ripped from an older game in terms of layout, so now all your old favourites have been Green-Hillified. It's just not a pretty game. Oh, and of course, how could I forget - the pop-in. It's been discussed to death, I've no idea why it's as bad and egregious as it is, and while it never felt like a game-breaker to me it's really not something you want in a full-price game. I don't know if it's an engine limitation, or if they dialled it back for Switch and didn't let the other platforms cook, but...it's bad. Raw, even.
Cutscene-wise, well, we've yet to surpass the Unleashed intro, unsurprisingly. The in-game cutscenes are rarely anything more than sub-standard animation and lip-flapping, though it looks passable whenever they need a serious action sequence. The pre-rendered stuff obviously looks better, but still uses the in-game assets for everything, so it's not a marked improvement. Enemy design is pretty original for the series, but almost all of them are the same shades of dark grey, so they're not especially striking.
It's really not the best the series has looked, at all, and either Sega need to give them more budget, they need a better art director, or they need to ditch the Hedgehog Engine and find a better solution.
MUSIC
I'm no music expert, I don't normally have much to add. That being said, I've seen complaints levelled at the more atmospheric soundtrack of the game. Honestly, I didn't have a problem with it at all - I found it just about suited the mood for almost every kind of scenario. I did, eventually, have to switch on the jukebox when I started grinding everything out - a post launch feature allowing you to collect legacy songs from the franchise and listen to them throughout regular exploration. The highlight are the vocal themes that play during bosses - much different than what I'm really used to from Sonic games lately, but most of which really stuck with me. Real good tunes.
CONCLUSION
I'm writing this about the main game, and I've not played The Final Horizon as of yet because I want to review that addendum separately. Ultimately, I think my perception of this game is coloured more positively than many due to a.) parts of this game appealing to my own desires from a Sonic title, and b.) playing it after every major update was out allowed me to experience a more complete and fixed-up product than what people who played at launch did. As it is, I think Sonic Frontiers is a perfectly OK and functional game - but with many caveats that stop me short of recommending it wholeheartedly. If you tried it, and didn't vibe with it, it ain't for you. And judging from this page, it definitely isn't for a lot of people. I'm fortunately to be able to appreciate this for what it is...but it doesn't stop me from being disappointed at what it isn't.
If I were rate this one on enjoyment alone, I'd probably be more inclined to give this one a 4/5. Critically, though...despite the risks taken, and the effort to differentiate itself from every prior Sonic title, it does just end up falling back into the middle of the road (a notoriously bad place for a hedgehog to be).
GAMEPLAY
The big selling point of Frontiers is the "Open-Zone" setup. Not an outright open world, but a set of 5 (well, 4 and a half) islands that Sonic can explore at will. Freedom of movement is the main appeal, and finally being able to do this in a Sonic game for what feels like the first time since Sonic Adventure really took me back. Picking a direction, blasting away at top speed and seeing where I end up, blissful. It's the baseline of what I want to feel from a Sonic game, and one that I rarely get to actually experience.
Of course, the manner of Sonic's controls have always been hotly debated by the ever-warring fandom. Sonic Team had the perfect solution: do it yourself! Sonic has a number of sliders to tune his handling to virtually whatever you'd like; regardless of whether it's actually remotely controllable or not. People who set his default running speed to maximum were gonna be in a rude awakening when they get to the parkour challenges, but they're completely free to do so. I had the luxury of playing close to a year post-launch, though; Sonic had harsh jump deceleration to start with, losing all momentum when jumping. Fortunately, Sonic Team listened to fans and let you turn that shit off - and it really, really helps.
So, you've got a Sonic you can tune to your liking, and huge areas to let him lose in. And yet, the game begins by almost immediately dumping you into a short, linear level with a completely different, fixed control scheme. Cyberspace levels are thrown into the experience to provide more traditional Sonic levels, and I appreciate and understand why; it's far easier to break them off into separate instances than build the levels naturally into the open world (which there is usually at least one instance of per island, so I'm glad they actually gave that a go). I also understand why the control scheme is different; the levels themselves rely a lot on scripted sequences that could potentially break if the player has set their acceleration outside of the accepted parameters. Unfortunately, while I understand the choices made, it doesn't stop Cyberspace from being a source of frustation, bordering on total misery. Sonic's turning circle becomes immense, and the levels themselves are automated to the point of failure, with the homing attack frequently failing to lock on when it needs to, and just generally being clumsy. One level even adds a drift mechanic that is completely embarassing in how much worse it is compared to previous games.
Moving away from Cyberspace, one other massive shakeup to the formula is the addition of a real, proper combat system. We haven't had such a thing since the dreadful Unleashed Werehog stages, and fortunately it's not nearly as limited. That said, it's no Devil May Cry either. Sonic can still homing attack to kill or notably injure the small fry, but larger enemies and minibosses will require much mashing of the X button. As you gain skill points, you can expand Sonic's reportoire to include dodge attacks, Rider Kicks, and just straight up shooting lasers from his shoes or something. There's enough variety in there to make it so that the varying enemy types may only be susceptible to specific moves, but admittedly there's also little stopping you from just persistently mashing X against at least half of the encounters.
Further adding to Sonic's moveset is the Cyloop. Holding Y will leave a trail behind Sonic, and allow you to draw circles, Pokémon Ranger-style, around enemies. This is often best suited to breaking an enemy's guard, but can also be used in the open world to activate events, solve puzzles, and (if you're persistent) gather a limitless supply of rings and other important resources. It's a neat trick, although I find it cuts out far too easily whenever you hit the slightest imperfection in the floor. That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing such a move become a more permanent part of Sonic's skillset - where applicable.
At the heart of it, Sonic Frontiers is a big ol' collectathon. Each of the hundreds of grind rails and platforms that awkwardly pop into existence as soon as you're 10ft away lead to a small bounty of riches. Rings, obviously, still keep Sonic from dying to damage. However, depending on your ever-increasing stats, Sonic can both hold more maximum rings, as well as lose less of them when taking damage, more akin to a health bar. As well as that, you can find seeds that raise Sonic's attack and defense, skill points to unlock new moves, and memory tokens; needed to advance the plot. That's not forgetting about Emerald Vault keys, for getting the Chaos Emeralds, and Portal Gears from downed minibosses for playing the Cyberspace levels (the main source of the aforementioned Vault keys). That's a lot to collect, and sounds like a challenging, if time consuming gameplay structure. Of course, if you don't actually have any interest in playing the game, Big the Cat has you covered. Yes, if you collect enough purple coins, you can go fishing, and use your gains from that to just buy everything - everything - and theroetically max out Sonic's stats and get every mandatory collectible to beat the story within, say, an hour or so total of fishing. It's such a bizarre way to break the game that they might as well have admitted "Use this if you're a games journalist with a tight deadline!".
The fishing itself, by the way, is mindless - essentially a rhythm game without the rhythm. Cast the rod (doesn't matter where), wait for a bite (won't take more than 10 seconds), tap A, tap A again when the ring is within the red areas. Boom, fish. One part of getting 100% is to catch every fish at every spot, but that won't even be hard because it's as if the game's rigged to not give you any duplicates until you've 100%ed a fishing spot. The key rewards for fishing that you can't get anywhere else are the Egg Memos. They're simply snippets of random trivia, as well as Eggman's perspective on current events. It's mostly a checklist of references and fanservice, but more - much more - on that later.
So, the game plays fine, has a decent smattering of content, but not all of it good. A lot of it is just simple stimulation - pass by a dash pad or spring, get distracted, and get taken on a brief rollercoaster ride with high speed and minimal input. But the freedom of movement is key here, and that freedom to just go anywhere and forcibly glitch yourself up anything is simply liberating, which is very Sonic. Using the grind rails and springs is fun and all, but the real big brain gaming is finding the way to sequence break these pathways and take the collectible by force. It's what made those first two islands, in all their generic appearance, a real good time in my experience.
Sorry, I specified "the first two islands" just then, didn't I? Yeah, that whole "freedom of movement" thing sadly gets shut down by the third island, where the game decides that Cyberspace didn't fill its mandatory 2D quota and forces almost every single one of the hundreds of platforming sections on the island to lock Sonic into a 2D perspective. Doing so shuts down most of the controls, including the combat system, and stops you from leaving without finding some gap in the platforms to break out of it. This horrible downgrade in quality hangs over the third island almost entirely, and a good chunk of the fifth island as well. I really hated my time with these 2D segments, and it made me less inclined to collect every memory token as I had for the first two islands (but it didn't stop me in the end). To make an open world and liberating Sonic, only to shackle him back to these confines so soon after really makes me wonder what the circumstances surrounding this decision was.
This gameplay loop culminates in finding each of the Chaos Emeralds on each island(save one). Once all Chaos Emeralds on an island are obtained, you get to challenge the island's boss. Said boss holds the last Emerald, and when you finally grab it, you get to engage the boss as Super Sonic. On paper, this is a really fun implementation of Super Sonic, as opposed to a reward for clearing (often annoying) special stages, or only showing up in the final battle. It's a shame that Super Sonic remains unusable in the open world, but it's not like you really need it. You sure need it for the boss fights though, because they're proper slugfests. They unfortunately aren't the most inspiring fights, though - despite the soundtrack's best efforts. Mashing X remains the most worthwhile tactic until the boss chooses to throw an attack that you can parry - only then is the major damage dealt. Some bosses unfortunately tend to spam attacks that Sonic needs to do a quick time event to avoid or deflect, and some of the things they throw at you are downright confusing in how to deal with it. The spectacle is appreciated, but I had more fun watching other people do these fights than playing them for myself. The ring limit may seem like a tricky thing to deal with, but seeing as you can gain infinite rings before the right by holding Y and running in circles, it's really no big deal.
And before I wrap this up, there are a few little weird breaks in the formula scattered throughout the main story. These range from herding children, to mowing the lawn(seriously), to playing an actual sh'mup(seriously). They're usually kinda clunky, but at least don't outstay their lack-of-welcome. Except pinball. Oh, I hope you like pinball.
Well, that's more than enough about the gameplay - it's got grand ideas but a confused execution of them in the back half of the game, which is pretty disappointing.
STORY
I won't get too into spoilers, but I can describe how the story made me feel - pretty unimpressed. The premise is as basic as it gets - Sonic and co. get stuck on a strange land, and everyone else gets imprisoned while Sonic alone has to save their asses, while guided by a mysterious voice telling them to kill all the big stompy gits. All while a weird cyber-ghost girl keeps wishing death upon Sonic to his face every 10 minutes. It just sets up the gameplay loop pretty directly, and you probably already guessed where it's going as you get to reading this part. There's nothing new or inventive here, and I can't say I'm even disappointed - the deeper a Sonic story tries to go, the more awful is usually is.
Where the real appeal and attention is directed is the writing itself. Ian Flynn is no new name to Sonic, but for his first game rodeo it's not a bad effort. Not a bad effort, but I have a handful of bones to pick nonetheless. Flynn generally has a good grasp on when to be sincere and when to throw in the goofs - an increasingly difficult challenge for most fiction these days, and there are a few stumbles, but I appreciated that not every serious moment was clobbered by a crowbar layered in irony. If you're particularly jaded on Sonic, it might even seem ridiculous how serious the story takes itself sometimes, but I appreciate that the risk was taken. However, the dialogue - particularly the more optional "side stories" - are also heavily, heavily weighed down with a thick layer of fanservice. You're telling me Sonic and friends touch down on Unreal Engine 4 default landscape, and they all immediately get reminded of virtually every single previous game? I can appreciate an attempt at real continuity, and no hate to anyone out there who ate it all up, but the references were laid on way too thick. I'd settle for maybe a third of the total random call-backs to past games that made their way into the script - and sure, you can also keep the incredibly heavy handed attempts to force Tangle and Sticks into canon - but they really stretch to try to bring up the older games and it really took me out of it after a while.
"Heavy-handed" can also be used to describe Flynn's attempts to wrangle the characterisation of Sonic and co. back in a direction resembling what the fans screaming at the writing since Colors wanted - and it's amusing how visibly hard Flynn is turning the wheel here. Tails in particular gets the blunt end of it, even blurting out "Then I'm wildly inconsistent!" verbatim when he brings up his infamous character regression in Forces, versus his heroism in Adventure. It manages to highlight the problems such moments created for these characters, without resorting to relentless irony and/or outright retconning. Eggman also gets a particularly unique character arc, though it's so disconnected from other media, and most of the game itself, that it's hard to really talk about without going full spoilers. I like where it could be going, I only hope that future games follow up on this change.
PRESENTATION
Of course, a story - and the rest of the game - rely strongly on how its presented. Frontiers, visually, is rather unremarkable. It's not an ugly game (or at least, normally - I may have had to turn all settings to minimum to get it to run) but there's still something almost double-A about this game, in spite of the price, runtime and Sonic's legacy. Lighting isn't optimal, and the environments go for a low-budget realism look that both clashes hard with Sonic as well as all the grind rails and springs thrown into them. The worlds may be fun to run through, but they're sure not pretty to look at. Even looking back at Sonic Unleashed - the last real AAA Sonic game - there's just so much more life in the animations and environments. Even going into Cyberspace, it's almost entirely comprised of regurgitated Generations/Forces assets. As such, every single level is either Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary, or assorted stuff from Forces. It's pretty distracting given that every level is also ripped from an older game in terms of layout, so now all your old favourites have been Green-Hillified. It's just not a pretty game. Oh, and of course, how could I forget - the pop-in. It's been discussed to death, I've no idea why it's as bad and egregious as it is, and while it never felt like a game-breaker to me it's really not something you want in a full-price game. I don't know if it's an engine limitation, or if they dialled it back for Switch and didn't let the other platforms cook, but...it's bad. Raw, even.
Cutscene-wise, well, we've yet to surpass the Unleashed intro, unsurprisingly. The in-game cutscenes are rarely anything more than sub-standard animation and lip-flapping, though it looks passable whenever they need a serious action sequence. The pre-rendered stuff obviously looks better, but still uses the in-game assets for everything, so it's not a marked improvement. Enemy design is pretty original for the series, but almost all of them are the same shades of dark grey, so they're not especially striking.
It's really not the best the series has looked, at all, and either Sega need to give them more budget, they need a better art director, or they need to ditch the Hedgehog Engine and find a better solution.
MUSIC
I'm no music expert, I don't normally have much to add. That being said, I've seen complaints levelled at the more atmospheric soundtrack of the game. Honestly, I didn't have a problem with it at all - I found it just about suited the mood for almost every kind of scenario. I did, eventually, have to switch on the jukebox when I started grinding everything out - a post launch feature allowing you to collect legacy songs from the franchise and listen to them throughout regular exploration. The highlight are the vocal themes that play during bosses - much different than what I'm really used to from Sonic games lately, but most of which really stuck with me. Real good tunes.
CONCLUSION
I'm writing this about the main game, and I've not played The Final Horizon as of yet because I want to review that addendum separately. Ultimately, I think my perception of this game is coloured more positively than many due to a.) parts of this game appealing to my own desires from a Sonic title, and b.) playing it after every major update was out allowed me to experience a more complete and fixed-up product than what people who played at launch did. As it is, I think Sonic Frontiers is a perfectly OK and functional game - but with many caveats that stop me short of recommending it wholeheartedly. If you tried it, and didn't vibe with it, it ain't for you. And judging from this page, it definitely isn't for a lot of people. I'm fortunately to be able to appreciate this for what it is...but it doesn't stop me from being disappointed at what it isn't.
After listening to the Soundtrack for months without playing it, this ended up being a nice surprise. We all made fun of the hanging rails out of nowhere and the "Breath of the Wild" style focus but it ended up working pretty nicely for the Sonic gameplay loop, making the game totally addictive as the best open world games are able to do.
On the negative side, the pop in is ridiculous in all islands, the cyberspace levels end before you can even enjoy them and, as usual, sometimes Sonic controls in 3d like ass. Overall, this was a very enjoyable game!
On the negative side, the pop in is ridiculous in all islands, the cyberspace levels end before you can even enjoy them and, as usual, sometimes Sonic controls in 3d like ass. Overall, this was a very enjoyable game!
I’m one of those Sonic fans that really likes the series but knows more than half of the games are shit, and the previous 3D Sonic game, Sonic Forces, was EXCEEDINGLY shit, one of the worst games I ever played, so Sonic Frontiers going for a different direction felt like a breath of fresh air, and thankfully it is indeed a step in the right direction, because the game is fun, I genuinely liked my time with it from beginning to end, however... it does need A LOT of tweaking.
Controlling Sonic feels great for the most part, it’s a blast exploring those expansive areas at lightning speed, but it’s also janky as heck. There’s many things you can do with Sonic that you know you shouldn’t be able to, but the broken physics of the game allow you to finagle your way through, like scaling a steep mountain by mashing the drop dash; or they screw you up, something that frequently happens in the countless 2D sections. Another big part of the game is the combat, which I honestly don’t mind - it can feel pretty satisfying doing some crazy combos, though some enemies are a pain in the ass to deal with because of waiting cycles.
I said exploring the areas is a blast, but the merit certainly doesn’t go to the areas themselves, because they’re just bland realistic-looking environments that feel nothing like a Sonic game. It’s like those Unreal Engine demos that fans would make and people would go “HIRE THIS MAN!!!”, and sure enough, Sega hired that man and now we have Sonic running on a realistic generic desert. The gameplay loop is pretty repetitive, consisting of getting trinkets around the maps by clearing platforming sections or menial puzzles, but it’s fun, it never bored me.
Sometimes the pacing is broken by the Cyberspace levels, bite-sized challenges that revert the gameplay back to the boost formula from Sonic Unleashed onwards, whose a bunch of level designs are lifted straight from older games. Those are a welcome change of pace from the exploration of the main game - blazing through these stages to get the best rankings offer a rush of adrenaline that Sonic Forces couldn’t get even close to offering. And this is where the best songs in the whole game are found, some absolute bangers that are among the best in the whole Sonic franchise (which is saying A LOT, considering this franchise always delivers on the music department).
As for the story, I was never one to care about Sonic plots, so it wasn’t much different with this one, despite the new direction they took with it, being more somber and introspective. It’s an interesting approach, though it also needs some fine tuning, because it’s pretty convoluted and there are still the occasional jokes being cracked at inappropriate times. Oh, and the writing is WAY TOO self-referential to the point it gets annoying - hearing Sonic mentioning events of every Sonic game under the sun one every two lines isn’t a particularly enticing kind of fanservice.
Should be noted that all my thoughts are related to the game before that big update that added new characters, new story and new challenges. I've beaten the game before that dropped and didn’t play it yet, but I’ve heard very conflicting opinions about it. I do plan to play it eventually, though. But yeah, it may feel like I was harsh on the game, but I genuinely believe it’s a solid blueprint for the future of the series. Can’t wait to see how they’ll improve on it with the next 3D Sonic entry.
Controlling Sonic feels great for the most part, it’s a blast exploring those expansive areas at lightning speed, but it’s also janky as heck. There’s many things you can do with Sonic that you know you shouldn’t be able to, but the broken physics of the game allow you to finagle your way through, like scaling a steep mountain by mashing the drop dash; or they screw you up, something that frequently happens in the countless 2D sections. Another big part of the game is the combat, which I honestly don’t mind - it can feel pretty satisfying doing some crazy combos, though some enemies are a pain in the ass to deal with because of waiting cycles.
I said exploring the areas is a blast, but the merit certainly doesn’t go to the areas themselves, because they’re just bland realistic-looking environments that feel nothing like a Sonic game. It’s like those Unreal Engine demos that fans would make and people would go “HIRE THIS MAN!!!”, and sure enough, Sega hired that man and now we have Sonic running on a realistic generic desert. The gameplay loop is pretty repetitive, consisting of getting trinkets around the maps by clearing platforming sections or menial puzzles, but it’s fun, it never bored me.
Sometimes the pacing is broken by the Cyberspace levels, bite-sized challenges that revert the gameplay back to the boost formula from Sonic Unleashed onwards, whose a bunch of level designs are lifted straight from older games. Those are a welcome change of pace from the exploration of the main game - blazing through these stages to get the best rankings offer a rush of adrenaline that Sonic Forces couldn’t get even close to offering. And this is where the best songs in the whole game are found, some absolute bangers that are among the best in the whole Sonic franchise (which is saying A LOT, considering this franchise always delivers on the music department).
As for the story, I was never one to care about Sonic plots, so it wasn’t much different with this one, despite the new direction they took with it, being more somber and introspective. It’s an interesting approach, though it also needs some fine tuning, because it’s pretty convoluted and there are still the occasional jokes being cracked at inappropriate times. Oh, and the writing is WAY TOO self-referential to the point it gets annoying - hearing Sonic mentioning events of every Sonic game under the sun one every two lines isn’t a particularly enticing kind of fanservice.
Should be noted that all my thoughts are related to the game before that big update that added new characters, new story and new challenges. I've beaten the game before that dropped and didn’t play it yet, but I’ve heard very conflicting opinions about it. I do plan to play it eventually, though. But yeah, it may feel like I was harsh on the game, but I genuinely believe it’s a solid blueprint for the future of the series. Can’t wait to see how they’ll improve on it with the next 3D Sonic entry.
When Sonic Frontiers was first revealed, I was extremely doubtful. After being so excited for both Boom and Forces before, and being so disappointed after playing them, there was just something in me that couldn't be excited for any new Sonic games. I didn't want to take any chances, and I didn't want to come out of it just as terribly as I did the two previously mentioned.
As time goes on, more is revealed. A big, open world Sonic game, the story is written by the comic writers! But I still can't convince myself. As long as I keep my expectations as low as possible, whatever happens will happen. The game releases, and people love it! Clearly it's not perfect, but it's a shocking amount of praise for a modern Sonic game. This is about when I decided, fuck it, maybe they're right.
It took me a few months, and they were pretty painstaking months, trying my absolutely hardest to stay unspoiled, even going as far as not listening to any of the music (outside of Vandalize, that one was good), and god damn! They were right!
I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of Frontiers. I had some problems, the general consensus seems to be that the game sorta falls off after the first island, which I guess is right to an extent. I liked exploring Kronos, but the layouts of the next 2 islands were pretty irritating to navigate, falling into chasms in Ares Island made it pretty difficult to find out where I was supposed to be going and how. Chaos Island is filled to the brim with boost pads and springs that force you into boring and limiting 2D sections, which is quite possibly the last thing I'm looking for in such an open world. They sucked to come across so many times, but I didn't let it dampen my experience too much.
The Cyber Space levels provide fun challenges and make for some really cool speedruns once you learn more of the games tricks and mechanics, but of course, it's a bit of a problem once you realize every single one of them is just a new variant on one of four themes, Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary, and street. I'm not really sure what the street is meant to be referencing, but at least those levels were pretty fun.
The bosses are all fun accompanied with the kick-ass music that they're given, pretty easy but I guess it's the spectacle of them that I enjoyed the most. The End not so much, though. Not only is the "true" final boss locked behind hard mode, not something I've ever really been a fan of, but once you do get there, it's nothing but a tedious bullet hell, same as some of the minigames used earlier to unlock certain parts of the map. Lackluster for a series that, if anything, usually does pretty damn good final bosses.
For every pro Frontiers has, there's a con that follows shortly after. Might sound weird for a 9/10 review, but I think most of what I love about this game is that I actually enjoyed it. I went into it with little expectations, I was ready to be disappointed to hell and back again, and I'm already not the biggest fan of open world games in general. But I loved Sonic Frontiers, and damn near everything it offered. Sonic is a series that I've been a fan of nearly my whole life at this point, which is why I view his lowest points so harshly. When he does good, I get to feel like a kid again. There's something so comforting to me about playing one of his games and actually having fun, which should be a given, but with how inconsistent the series can be, it makes those high points all the more worth it.
I fucking love Sonic the Hedgehog, and I love being a Sonic fan.
As time goes on, more is revealed. A big, open world Sonic game, the story is written by the comic writers! But I still can't convince myself. As long as I keep my expectations as low as possible, whatever happens will happen. The game releases, and people love it! Clearly it's not perfect, but it's a shocking amount of praise for a modern Sonic game. This is about when I decided, fuck it, maybe they're right.
It took me a few months, and they were pretty painstaking months, trying my absolutely hardest to stay unspoiled, even going as far as not listening to any of the music (outside of Vandalize, that one was good), and god damn! They were right!
I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of Frontiers. I had some problems, the general consensus seems to be that the game sorta falls off after the first island, which I guess is right to an extent. I liked exploring Kronos, but the layouts of the next 2 islands were pretty irritating to navigate, falling into chasms in Ares Island made it pretty difficult to find out where I was supposed to be going and how. Chaos Island is filled to the brim with boost pads and springs that force you into boring and limiting 2D sections, which is quite possibly the last thing I'm looking for in such an open world. They sucked to come across so many times, but I didn't let it dampen my experience too much.
The Cyber Space levels provide fun challenges and make for some really cool speedruns once you learn more of the games tricks and mechanics, but of course, it's a bit of a problem once you realize every single one of them is just a new variant on one of four themes, Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary, and street. I'm not really sure what the street is meant to be referencing, but at least those levels were pretty fun.
The bosses are all fun accompanied with the kick-ass music that they're given, pretty easy but I guess it's the spectacle of them that I enjoyed the most. The End not so much, though. Not only is the "true" final boss locked behind hard mode, not something I've ever really been a fan of, but once you do get there, it's nothing but a tedious bullet hell, same as some of the minigames used earlier to unlock certain parts of the map. Lackluster for a series that, if anything, usually does pretty damn good final bosses.
For every pro Frontiers has, there's a con that follows shortly after. Might sound weird for a 9/10 review, but I think most of what I love about this game is that I actually enjoyed it. I went into it with little expectations, I was ready to be disappointed to hell and back again, and I'm already not the biggest fan of open world games in general. But I loved Sonic Frontiers, and damn near everything it offered. Sonic is a series that I've been a fan of nearly my whole life at this point, which is why I view his lowest points so harshly. When he does good, I get to feel like a kid again. There's something so comforting to me about playing one of his games and actually having fun, which should be a given, but with how inconsistent the series can be, it makes those high points all the more worth it.
I fucking love Sonic the Hedgehog, and I love being a Sonic fan.
Quite possibly one of the worst gameplay experiences I have had the misfortune of playing in my entire life. This game sucks, man. So unbelievably tedious, with terrible movement, terrible environments, not a single thing is genuinely good about this game in my eyes. Constant tedium, collecting one thing then talking to the character. Rinse and repeat over and over again. Bland environments, terribly controlling hyperspace levels, I sometimes wonder if I'm playing the same game as everyone else because this game is unbelievably dogshit but Sonic fans act like this is the savior of the series. Am I just stupid? Do I not get it? Because by all means this is some of the most tedious gameplay you can really find out on the current-day market-- but for some reason people think this game is good. This game sucks, man. I have no plans to pick it back up any time soon, even with the multiple free content updates they've released since. It's staying dropped, sorry Sonic fans!
Yeah this was really fun
Not the biggest fan of Messiah Sonic but the story was pretty alright if I do say so myself
Gameplay was really fun for the most part, the DLC was the peak of it though
Not the biggest fan of Messiah Sonic but the story was pretty alright if I do say so myself
Gameplay was really fun for the most part, the DLC was the peak of it though
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.
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.
Before the Final Horizon update comes out, I think now is a good time to talk about this game after I decided to replay it from scratch recently without any of the new game plus stuff this week.
With that being said, this game is the most fun I ever had with a janky game in recent memory. I can complain about how blatantly unpolished it is, the unacceptable pop-in, and the original finale being one of the most underwhelming climaxes in the entire series (please age poorly with the final update), etc.
I can easily see why people don’t vibe with this game at all. However, I can’t for the life of me because blazing through the open zone to collect or complete stuff at a consistent speed is such an addictive gameplay loop that I didn’t expect to enjoy so much, listening to an amazing soundtrack that tells it to own little story or tone, enjoying most of character interactions, and titan fights for as spectacle heavy as they are being franchise highlights.
This game despite how duct-taped together it feels reminded me why I love the Sonic franchise despite the bumpy roads it had to go through for god knows how long at this point I’m just not in the mood to spell it out. Regardless, Sonic Frontiers did enough for me personally to enjoy the overall package and it makes me optimistic for the future of the series.
With that being said, this game is the most fun I ever had with a janky game in recent memory. I can complain about how blatantly unpolished it is, the unacceptable pop-in, and the original finale being one of the most underwhelming climaxes in the entire series (please age poorly with the final update), etc.
I can easily see why people don’t vibe with this game at all. However, I can’t for the life of me because blazing through the open zone to collect or complete stuff at a consistent speed is such an addictive gameplay loop that I didn’t expect to enjoy so much, listening to an amazing soundtrack that tells it to own little story or tone, enjoying most of character interactions, and titan fights for as spectacle heavy as they are being franchise highlights.
This game despite how duct-taped together it feels reminded me why I love the Sonic franchise despite the bumpy roads it had to go through for god knows how long at this point I’m just not in the mood to spell it out. Regardless, Sonic Frontiers did enough for me personally to enjoy the overall package and it makes me optimistic for the future of the series.
Eu ainda lembro de após chegar da feira, comprando e testando meus jogos de PS2, e não tendo o conhecimento que minha vida séria mudada, com a intro de Sonic Heroes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs1MvspaYUo
Fui logo cativado por aquele mundo, Sonic sempre existiu o carinho e sempre foi uma forma de abraço forte e amigos que eu tinha mesmo nas piores fases da minha vida quando perdi boa parte dos meus amigos na escola, e me sentindo solitário, era os amigos que eu tinha, o Sonic sempre foi o meu herói, sempre esteve presente nos melhores momentos, e também nos que importa nas amizades, também nos piores.
Mas quando eu crescia e observava quantas opiniões negativas e quantas pessoas odiavam o que me construiu como pessoa, e não tinham o mesmo carinho que eu tinha por Sonic me deixava confuso. e acho que agora eu posso finalmente falar do Frontiers, que é um jogo que tem autoconsciência dos erros e acertos de Sonic como franquia e ícone, sabendo que um dos principais fatores é sua experimentação, mudar totalmente a gameplay no último chefe faz sentido? Em Sonic faz mais do que sentido, é como ele funciona.
O jogo que abraça a parte quebrada da franquia, a experimental, mas também o carinho e o amor ao seus personagens, ao seus conceitos. Sonic pega a relação de você com os seus personagens como velhos amigos e leva para a última potência, acompanhando o seu ouriço lembrando de seus amigos por ver refêrencias, lugares, objetos, que o lembravam dele, mesmo ele não estando com eles, mesmo não os vendo á anos, o amor ainda existe, a saudade é forte, a abordagem mais séria em sua dublagem é perfeita, o carinho que a sua voz expressa por aqueles personagens e por aquele mundo, citando quase todos os personagens, por mesmo eles não estando fisicamente no jogo, eles estão acompanhando em seu coração, que sempre avança, que sempre sendo a criatura mais rápida do mundo, o tempo vai avançar, mas o amor e as memórias permaneceram em sua mente de forma intacta.
É um jogo que entende as relações humanas, e sabe que a sua relação com um jogo não precisa ser construída por valores objetivos, e sim pode apenas ser emocionais, sim os jogos podem ser imperfeitos, como todas nossas relações, nenhum de nossos amigos, familiares, são perfeitos, então por que é necessário querer que os jogos sejam perfeitos? são apenas mais uma de nossas relações que vão ser marcadas em nossos corações. Quando a Sage tenta abalar a relação do Sonic e do Tails, falando como ele acha o Tails inútil e um peso morto, Tails fala como deveria parar de apenas atrapalhar Sonic, e tantas memórias são colocadas a tona, para explicitar como a amizade deles é forte, ambos fazem tudo que podem apenas por se amarem, nada em troca, sim a amizade deles pode ter sido abalada naquele momento, claro que aquilo não é perfeito, nada é, porém isso que torna aquilo humano e vivo, as brigas apelas abalou para renascer mais forte, a imperfeição é uma parte importante de nossas relações, e por isso que elas são tão lindas, a Sage chora por entender isso, e chora por não ter relação com o seu pai, e ela finalmente entende o que é ser humano, e a beleza de ser imperfeito. Sonic Frontiers não tenta ser perfeito, longe disso, e é por isso que ele é belo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs1MvspaYUo
Fui logo cativado por aquele mundo, Sonic sempre existiu o carinho e sempre foi uma forma de abraço forte e amigos que eu tinha mesmo nas piores fases da minha vida quando perdi boa parte dos meus amigos na escola, e me sentindo solitário, era os amigos que eu tinha, o Sonic sempre foi o meu herói, sempre esteve presente nos melhores momentos, e também nos que importa nas amizades, também nos piores.
Mas quando eu crescia e observava quantas opiniões negativas e quantas pessoas odiavam o que me construiu como pessoa, e não tinham o mesmo carinho que eu tinha por Sonic me deixava confuso. e acho que agora eu posso finalmente falar do Frontiers, que é um jogo que tem autoconsciência dos erros e acertos de Sonic como franquia e ícone, sabendo que um dos principais fatores é sua experimentação, mudar totalmente a gameplay no último chefe faz sentido? Em Sonic faz mais do que sentido, é como ele funciona.
O jogo que abraça a parte quebrada da franquia, a experimental, mas também o carinho e o amor ao seus personagens, ao seus conceitos. Sonic pega a relação de você com os seus personagens como velhos amigos e leva para a última potência, acompanhando o seu ouriço lembrando de seus amigos por ver refêrencias, lugares, objetos, que o lembravam dele, mesmo ele não estando com eles, mesmo não os vendo á anos, o amor ainda existe, a saudade é forte, a abordagem mais séria em sua dublagem é perfeita, o carinho que a sua voz expressa por aqueles personagens e por aquele mundo, citando quase todos os personagens, por mesmo eles não estando fisicamente no jogo, eles estão acompanhando em seu coração, que sempre avança, que sempre sendo a criatura mais rápida do mundo, o tempo vai avançar, mas o amor e as memórias permaneceram em sua mente de forma intacta.
É um jogo que entende as relações humanas, e sabe que a sua relação com um jogo não precisa ser construída por valores objetivos, e sim pode apenas ser emocionais, sim os jogos podem ser imperfeitos, como todas nossas relações, nenhum de nossos amigos, familiares, são perfeitos, então por que é necessário querer que os jogos sejam perfeitos? são apenas mais uma de nossas relações que vão ser marcadas em nossos corações. Quando a Sage tenta abalar a relação do Sonic e do Tails, falando como ele acha o Tails inútil e um peso morto, Tails fala como deveria parar de apenas atrapalhar Sonic, e tantas memórias são colocadas a tona, para explicitar como a amizade deles é forte, ambos fazem tudo que podem apenas por se amarem, nada em troca, sim a amizade deles pode ter sido abalada naquele momento, claro que aquilo não é perfeito, nada é, porém isso que torna aquilo humano e vivo, as brigas apelas abalou para renascer mais forte, a imperfeição é uma parte importante de nossas relações, e por isso que elas são tão lindas, a Sage chora por entender isso, e chora por não ter relação com o seu pai, e ela finalmente entende o que é ser humano, e a beleza de ser imperfeito. Sonic Frontiers não tenta ser perfeito, longe disso, e é por isso que ele é belo.
Sonic Frontiers is an interesting game, it annoyed me in a lot areas and it feels half baked in some aspects too. Which is wild how it still is one of my favorite Sonic games period because the things it does get right just had me grinning the whole way and made me finally excited for the future of this series again.
The open zone format is exactly the breath of fresh air this franchise needed, yes the pop-in can be distracting, the obstacles can sometimes get frustrating to go through, and some of the map challenges are really brain-dead and dumb. However the feeling of blitzing through these massive areas at super-speed is something I've always wanted to experience in a game and Frontiers satisfies that itch. Some of the little mini obstacle courses, while visually can become ugly and too cluttered, is really fun to have so many of that are decently designed. It's like a sandbox for mini Sonic stages which was a genuine joy to sink hours into.
The combat system is fun while leaving a lot to be desired at the same time, the ingredients are there with flashy moves, a parry and an emphasis on speed. It can eventually become too spammy and clunky. Fine-tuning this for future games would be very welcome, ofc also adding a bigger variety of regular enemies to fight since the over-emphasis on bosses (while the bosses themselves are really cool) are too numerous compared to regular enemies which can become very repetitive the more you get through it. This also goes to the levelling system, if Sonic Team is going to go with the ARPG mechanics, they need to commit to it more, at least have different enemies with different levels otherwise
Another thing I want to address is the collectibles, some of it felt genuinely pointless as the game gives you all these shortcuts for collecting them too fast and distracting you from engaging with the actual world. It's a mess as they eventually become pointless way too quick killing that aspect of the game that would've given the open zones some much needed identity for individual segments of its world.
Some of the cyber space levels are really short and pointless and the very limited use of level themes really didn't allow them to stand-out as much, alot of the 2D levels felt like unneeded schlock. However there were quite a number of gems in here harkening back to Generation and Sonic Adventure level design. After being bored by the way too linear levels of Forces, I had a blast going through these levels that had actual branching paths and shortcuts which I missed in the 3D games.
Finally when it comes to the story, I am glad to see Sonic's cast be treated with more respect and have heavy stakes actually given the weight it needs. It does meander with expostion and flashbacks but it comes together nicely. Ian Flynn did a fantastic job. Sage is a fun new addition to the ever growing cast and while her development with Eggman can feel rushed with a lot of key moments needing optional memory logs to fill in, it genuinely does lead to heartwarming moments. And finally I'm glad we can have legitmate badassery in Sonic again, I was taking screenshots like crazy with all the dope shit that can happen especially in the boss fights.
I played the Final Horizons update alongside this but since it has it's own page I'll share my full thoughts there later.
The open zone format is exactly the breath of fresh air this franchise needed, yes the pop-in can be distracting, the obstacles can sometimes get frustrating to go through, and some of the map challenges are really brain-dead and dumb. However the feeling of blitzing through these massive areas at super-speed is something I've always wanted to experience in a game and Frontiers satisfies that itch. Some of the little mini obstacle courses, while visually can become ugly and too cluttered, is really fun to have so many of that are decently designed. It's like a sandbox for mini Sonic stages which was a genuine joy to sink hours into.
The combat system is fun while leaving a lot to be desired at the same time, the ingredients are there with flashy moves, a parry and an emphasis on speed. It can eventually become too spammy and clunky. Fine-tuning this for future games would be very welcome, ofc also adding a bigger variety of regular enemies to fight since the over-emphasis on bosses (while the bosses themselves are really cool) are too numerous compared to regular enemies which can become very repetitive the more you get through it. This also goes to the levelling system, if Sonic Team is going to go with the ARPG mechanics, they need to commit to it more, at least have different enemies with different levels otherwise
Another thing I want to address is the collectibles, some of it felt genuinely pointless as the game gives you all these shortcuts for collecting them too fast and distracting you from engaging with the actual world. It's a mess as they eventually become pointless way too quick killing that aspect of the game that would've given the open zones some much needed identity for individual segments of its world.
Some of the cyber space levels are really short and pointless and the very limited use of level themes really didn't allow them to stand-out as much, alot of the 2D levels felt like unneeded schlock. However there were quite a number of gems in here harkening back to Generation and Sonic Adventure level design. After being bored by the way too linear levels of Forces, I had a blast going through these levels that had actual branching paths and shortcuts which I missed in the 3D games.
Finally when it comes to the story, I am glad to see Sonic's cast be treated with more respect and have heavy stakes actually given the weight it needs. It does meander with expostion and flashbacks but it comes together nicely. Ian Flynn did a fantastic job. Sage is a fun new addition to the ever growing cast and while her development with Eggman can feel rushed with a lot of key moments needing optional memory logs to fill in, it genuinely does lead to heartwarming moments. And finally I'm glad we can have legitmate badassery in Sonic again, I was taking screenshots like crazy with all the dope shit that can happen especially in the boss fights.
I played the Final Horizons update alongside this but since it has it's own page I'll share my full thoughts there later.
É impressionante o quanto Sonic Frontiers consegue ser espetacular em alguns momentos, incrivelmente mediano em outros, e péssimo em alguns. É um daqueles jogos "dopamine simulator" que você imagina que seja ao pensar na premissa de um jogo de Sonic de mundo aberto.
Tem muito do que se gostar aqui: o primeiro mundo/ilha é fantástico, e particularmente eu gostei do conceito de você ficar livre pra se mover nas plataformas voadoras bizarras num mundo aberto. Cômico, mas bem divertido. A trilha sonora é muito boa também, especialmente nas batalhas contra os chefes principais do jogo. Inclusive, as batalhas contra esses chefes são bem divertidas e frenéticas.
Infelizmente, nem todas as ilhas são boas quanto a primeira. Na verdade, a primeira e a última ilha são legais, porém as outras podem se tornar extremamente cansativas e chatas. Principalmente a Chaos Island, que em determinado momento se tornou uma tortura pra mim. As mecânicas escolhidas nessa ilha simplesmente não encaixaram, e se tornou algo mais frustrante do que divertido.
Acho que não dá pra recomendar esse jogo para pessoas que gostam de algo minimamente coerente no que diz respeito à história se conectar com o gameplay, já que nada da jogabilidade foi feita pra fazer sentido e casar com a história. Particularmente, isso não me incomodou, mas entendo quem não gostar.
No fim, achei um bom experimento, por mais que tenha terminado o jogo no modo "quero terminar logo, já cansei" (talvez se fosse um pouquinho mais curto, não sei). Fiquei bem feliz que a franquia Sonic voltou com tudo, ainda mais depois do anúncio do novo jogo 2D que vai lançar ainda esse ano (2023), e está com um futuro promissor à frente. Apesar dos pesares, o saldo desse jogo comigo foi positivo!
Tem muito do que se gostar aqui: o primeiro mundo/ilha é fantástico, e particularmente eu gostei do conceito de você ficar livre pra se mover nas plataformas voadoras bizarras num mundo aberto. Cômico, mas bem divertido. A trilha sonora é muito boa também, especialmente nas batalhas contra os chefes principais do jogo. Inclusive, as batalhas contra esses chefes são bem divertidas e frenéticas.
Infelizmente, nem todas as ilhas são boas quanto a primeira. Na verdade, a primeira e a última ilha são legais, porém as outras podem se tornar extremamente cansativas e chatas. Principalmente a Chaos Island, que em determinado momento se tornou uma tortura pra mim. As mecânicas escolhidas nessa ilha simplesmente não encaixaram, e se tornou algo mais frustrante do que divertido.
Acho que não dá pra recomendar esse jogo para pessoas que gostam de algo minimamente coerente no que diz respeito à história se conectar com o gameplay, já que nada da jogabilidade foi feita pra fazer sentido e casar com a história. Particularmente, isso não me incomodou, mas entendo quem não gostar.
No fim, achei um bom experimento, por mais que tenha terminado o jogo no modo "quero terminar logo, já cansei" (talvez se fosse um pouquinho mais curto, não sei). Fiquei bem feliz que a franquia Sonic voltou com tudo, ainda mais depois do anúncio do novo jogo 2D que vai lançar ainda esse ano (2023), e está com um futuro promissor à frente. Apesar dos pesares, o saldo desse jogo comigo foi positivo!
For years, I thought an open-world Sonic game couldn't work. I thought the clash between Sonic's high-speed thrills and slower-paced exploration would be too strong.
So trust me when I say this game's amazing. The open zone segments wonderfully combine exploration of a sprawling map and conquering a series of linear platforming challenges. The Cyberspace stages, while not as good as other modern Sonic levels, serve their purpose perfectly as bite-sized challenges that break up the normal pace of gameplay just enough. The writing is easily the best it's been since Unleashed (I love Colors as much as the next guy, but its dialogue is something straight out of a bad Nicktoon). The music...well, it's a Sonic game. And of course, the Super Sonic boss fights perfectly encapsulate everything I love about this franchise. Frontiers is pure Sonic euphoria, and (at the time of writing) easily my favorite Sonic game ever.
And it has Big the Cat. What more could you possibly ask for?
So trust me when I say this game's amazing. The open zone segments wonderfully combine exploration of a sprawling map and conquering a series of linear platforming challenges. The Cyberspace stages, while not as good as other modern Sonic levels, serve their purpose perfectly as bite-sized challenges that break up the normal pace of gameplay just enough. The writing is easily the best it's been since Unleashed (I love Colors as much as the next guy, but its dialogue is something straight out of a bad Nicktoon). The music...well, it's a Sonic game. And of course, the Super Sonic boss fights perfectly encapsulate everything I love about this franchise. Frontiers is pure Sonic euphoria, and (at the time of writing) easily my favorite Sonic game ever.
And it has Big the Cat. What more could you possibly ask for?
Everything that I do not want in a videogame. Slip-slidey controls and a jump that feels floaty and a camera that sucks shit and an empty open world and a ton of stupid collectibles. The “traditional” levels, which are more my jam in theory, feel right out of [take your pick of the trash Sonic games that have come out in the two decades or so since Sonic Adventure].
Boosting around in a big open space is fun for about… 30 seconds to a minute. So at least there’s that?
Boosting around in a big open space is fun for about… 30 seconds to a minute. So at least there’s that?