A beautiful mess; a dazzling one, yes, but a mess nonetheless. As if mirroring Sonic’s inability to swim, SEGA’s poor hedgehog routinely sinks into a quagmire of mediocrity whenever he so much as steps into 3D, clunky gimmicks and unfocused design bogging down any level of competency. Now that he finally finds firm footing in Sonic Frontiers’ platforming/open-world hybrid, it’s no surprise his supersonic speed is wobbly and uneven after years of misuse, stumbling every which way from showstopper setpieces, fleeting intermezzos, and even right at the undercooked finish line. Awkward voiceless dialogue introduce us to the adorable little Cokos, and it’s never very clear which ones are collectible and which are just, uh, background props. The nighttime Starfall events are as useless as they are unnecessarily obtrusive; in fact, I died once thanks to the screen-obscuring slots covering a mini-boss’s navigable rails. The Titan boss fights come this close to cementing themselves as all-time series spotlights -- complete with the Sonic Adventure 2 buttrock hyping our inner ten-year-old – yet all are marred with finicky cameras and cumbersome parrying mechanics. (No joke, I died against Gigantos five times because I kept conflating the latter with dodging.)

All unfortunate byproducts from five years of insular development and, true to the game’s name, forging new frontiers. Apologist rhetoric, I know, but you certainly can’t deny the level of ambition on display in Frontiers’s open-world– a sorely-missed confidence not observed since Sonic’s Dreamcast days. Some find Frontiers’ haphazard assortment of suspended aerial loops and bouncy springs aimless and slap-dash; myself, I was certainly not left wanting: the moment I finished one task, three more were already waiting, and before I knew it, I’m obsessed with cleaning up the mess strewn before me, be they cleaning up robot mobs or scavenging every last floating medal to soak up some lore.

Sonic’s speed is an infamous conundrum: the Genesis games and his more lauded 3D efforts balance an unparalleled level of momentum and control; addictive sequences of breakneck acrobatics that actively demand mastery kindled from white-hot adrenaline. Yet it’s that same lightspeed that, much like witnessing the Blue Blur himself, can only constitute blink-and-you’ll-miss-it completion times, hence the abundance of Objectively Bad Ideas in werehogs and swords and guns and what-have-you propping his 3D adventures as faulty crutches. Having wisely tossed those out, SEGA’s take on Breath of the Wild plants their mascot into a freeform canvas where he’s free to run about as he pleases. There are bad ideas present, yes, but as we’re handed the keys to witness how the fastest thing alive might spend a day of do-goodery, we find ourselves lost much as we were in the jungles of Mystic Ruins and the streets of Station Square. Why fast travel when I can see what happens when I boost off that ramp or grind those rails? What happens if I Cyloop here, or perhaps there? Haphazard or not, the islands of Sonic Frontiers are veritable playgrounds in service to Sonic’s trademark appeal.

Paired with a story that actively gives a damn about continuity and character development, and we’re left with a respectable, if not deeply flawed, roadmap for the future. It could certainly stand to be better – one can only imagine how a refined product might deliver a true modern classic -- but for once, Sonic’s future isn’t paved with helixes and loop-de-loops leading nowhere, running the motions on worn hamster wheels. And for now, that might just be enough. Take it for what it’s worth.

(Assuming, of course, that for the next game SEGA doesn’t go dumpster diving for whatever unfathomable reason. You know how it is.)