This review contains spoilers
Immediately following the Sonic Frontiers DLC, I wasn't expecting this game to confuse my opinions even more on what this franchise is doing. I absolutely expected this game to be a rock solid 8/10. I feel like the best way to talk about my feelings while playing this game are chronologically, so here goes.
For the first 7 zones, I was really feeling this game. The opening zone is really strong with a great soundtrack, and the co-op is really fun. The design of these zones feel true to the classics and are pretty solid, and the feel of the characters and the look of the environments are pretty spot on. The cracks start to show a bit more as the game goes on, some of the zone themes are rather generic and don't do much to expand on the versions of those areas in the classic games, and some of the soundtrack has drastically lower quality than other parts. Once I finished the Press Factory Zone, I figured the game was winding down, which felt really good. Sure, it was a bit short, but the 'evil factory' area is naturally one of the last few and maybe would be followed by one last fortress or outerspace level.
What instead happened was a large drop in quality, the zone themes felt not fleshed out or repetitive, and the bosses got harder and more frustrating, many having ways of instantly killing the player and making them play through a 3+ minute boss fight all over again (this game has a MASSIVE boss design problem of making the player wait for an opportunity to hit after 30+ seconds of boss invulnerability). This all culminated with a pretty lame final boss that doesn't checkpoint you between the two phases, just to waste the player's time I guess.
Once beating the game, I unlocked Trip's Story, a new campaign starring this game's new playable character. This campaign is where I went from liking this game overall to dreading playing any more of it. Cheap, spike and enemy coated level design, bosses that take twice the length to beat as the already slow main story bosses, all capped off with one of the most time wasting, annoying bosses to ever come from this series (it took me roughly 6 hours to beat this boss, even though it only takes about 8 minutes to beat). Trip's story isn't worth your time unless you're a completionist, but it does unlock a perfectly fine Super Sonic final boss fight.
I hate to ramble so long, because I fear nobody will read this, but every time I play this game I think about how easy it would have been for this to be a smash hit. The bosses didn't have to be so long and cheap, Trip's story could have brought more to the table, the battle mode could be more interesting. There's so many areas where this game falls below expectations. The first half of the main story is truly a great time though. My main conclusion is to just play through that if you aren't a Sonic megafan.
For the first 7 zones, I was really feeling this game. The opening zone is really strong with a great soundtrack, and the co-op is really fun. The design of these zones feel true to the classics and are pretty solid, and the feel of the characters and the look of the environments are pretty spot on. The cracks start to show a bit more as the game goes on, some of the zone themes are rather generic and don't do much to expand on the versions of those areas in the classic games, and some of the soundtrack has drastically lower quality than other parts. Once I finished the Press Factory Zone, I figured the game was winding down, which felt really good. Sure, it was a bit short, but the 'evil factory' area is naturally one of the last few and maybe would be followed by one last fortress or outerspace level.
What instead happened was a large drop in quality, the zone themes felt not fleshed out or repetitive, and the bosses got harder and more frustrating, many having ways of instantly killing the player and making them play through a 3+ minute boss fight all over again (this game has a MASSIVE boss design problem of making the player wait for an opportunity to hit after 30+ seconds of boss invulnerability). This all culminated with a pretty lame final boss that doesn't checkpoint you between the two phases, just to waste the player's time I guess.
Once beating the game, I unlocked Trip's Story, a new campaign starring this game's new playable character. This campaign is where I went from liking this game overall to dreading playing any more of it. Cheap, spike and enemy coated level design, bosses that take twice the length to beat as the already slow main story bosses, all capped off with one of the most time wasting, annoying bosses to ever come from this series (it took me roughly 6 hours to beat this boss, even though it only takes about 8 minutes to beat). Trip's story isn't worth your time unless you're a completionist, but it does unlock a perfectly fine Super Sonic final boss fight.
I hate to ramble so long, because I fear nobody will read this, but every time I play this game I think about how easy it would have been for this to be a smash hit. The bosses didn't have to be so long and cheap, Trip's story could have brought more to the table, the battle mode could be more interesting. There's so many areas where this game falls below expectations. The first half of the main story is truly a great time though. My main conclusion is to just play through that if you aren't a Sonic megafan.