I mean, it's a step up from the first game. That doesn't really say much though because almost everything is a step up. Won't be going too in depth for this one but basically it looks better, has better music, and plays better. Other than that, the controls on iOS are terrible because the screen is small and the game is mid. Overall, pretty much the definition of mid and while slightly better than the original, that doesn't say much.

Edit: I changed my score to match Episode I as this doesn't have enough going for it to be on a higher level than the first, let along with other games in the next tier.

Sonic Frontiers was the first Sonic game I've ever bought on release date, and as someone who first got into Sonic around the time Generations was the newest game and Lost World's trailer soon dropped, I was excited to have the chance to play a Sonic game on release. I missed my chances with Lost World and Forces (luckily for both) since I didn't have a Wii U at the time of the former and I didn't have the money at the time of the later, and when I heard of the bad reviews I decided I didn't want it. This game though? I played it one launch and loved it to death, and it became my favourite Sonic game of all time. Recently on my quest to play every mainline Sonic game (which turned into doing it within 2023) and ranking them, I can say it's not my favourite, but it's damn close to being there. I think open world Sonic is just such a good formula, and while it may not be perfectly executed, I still had a blast. Finally playing a Sonic game with a good story since when I became a Sonic fan feels really good. Everything from Generations to Forces was really lacking in the story department, which sucked because I grew up with Unleashed (and Generations but kid me didn't care for story). I really like how the characters were portrayed and their relationships with Sonic felt really organic, something that hasn't been in the series for quite some time. The controls are fine for the most part, but not the best in the boost formula. I'm mainly talking about the turning, which is really highlighted in The Final Horizon, but I'll mention that in my review of that mainly. I'll mainly talk about the base game and not The Final Horizon, but my only critique of the main game is that Ouranos Island feels super rushed and you can tell. Kronos Island was a decent introduction that I enjoyed exploring, but Ares and Chaos Islands were the highlight, especially the former. I normally don't like desert themed levels, but Ares Island (along with Shamar/Arid Sands in Sonic Unleashed) is easily one of my favourites and it's impressive that a theme I usually hate was executed so well enough here. Chaos Island can be a little confusing to navigate at times, but I really like the overall theme of the area aesthetically. Rhea Island was really good because I love the platforming challenges, and even though that and Ouranos are aesthetically just Kronos Island, Rhea has the excuse of being a mini challenge section. Ouranos is underwhelming as a result and the amount of Memory Tokens you need is quite a bit as well, which slowed down the pacing for me. I love the new combat system, while the Guardians can be a little annoying to fight if you don't know their gimmicks, the new moves make combat so much more fun (as opposed to something like the rooms in Sonic Rush requiring you to kill x amount of enemies with the two moves available). The Titan battles are the highlight of the game and are some of my favourite moments in the series, which amazing music to go with it and it gives me chills with each boss going forward. I would be super excited to go through the next island to get to the next boss in my first playthrough, and I still love them now. I'll talk about updates 1 and 2 here so I can dedicate The Final Horizon to that page on here, but I adore jukebox mode not only for the great song choices, but also for adding a lot of additional exploration, especially in Rhea Island which desperately needed it. As for update 2, I actually did this run on New Game Plus, which made leveling up Sonic a lot easier and made beating up enemies super satisfying since I was an unbeatable force to be reckoned with. I still need to put more time in to check out some of the other features that I didn't use in my rush to get to The Final Horizon, but other than that, I'm really satisfied with the final product.

Edit: Forgot to mention the Cyber Space levels. While they probably are nostalgia bait since they take parts of previous existing levels in the series, I think it gets a pass (as opposed to Forces) because not only is there a lore explanation as to why these are returning, but I feel like considering this game is basically a tie in to literally every other mainline game, I think this actually works in favour of the game and its themes. The callbacks to other games are great, though some feel like reaches (mainly the Dark Gaia one which was kind of weird, but appreciated). I only wish they used more themes for the levels instead of the same four especially since most of those are pretty overused.

Overall, I would say while Frontiers is not a perfect game, I would say that this is easily one of my favourites in the series, working well to create a baseline for what could be the perfect Sonic formula in my eyes.

A very solid entry in the franchise, while not completely perfect, it has a lot of great things about it and it's one of the Sonic games that a majority of people will say is good. It's a pretty short game, completing it at 4 hours, but replaying it after clearing every other mainline Sonic game before feels pretty rewarding. The Classic stages can be a little meh sometimes, but they're still pretty easy to breeze through and the Modern stages make up for it for feeling a lot smoother and faster, though they have quite a bit of 2D elements despite the Classic and Modern differences being 2D and 3D. The game is also really easy, which is fine, but makes me less likely to replay it compared to something like Unleashed or Adventure 2 which can be challenging at times due to it's gimmicks or level design. This can be excused because this game should be easy, it's a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Sonic and all of the games that came before. The soundtrack has pretty decent remixes, though I prefer a lot of the original songs a lot more. The Classic remixes are alright at best and not really for me, though the Modern remixes are a lot more of my style even if they aren't better than the original. Overall, I'd say this game is pretty solid and does what it needs to best for a great celebration of Sonic's 20th year.

When I was a kid, I remember seeing the trailer for the new Sonic game. I really wanted to play it, and while I was visiting my cousin around 8 years ago? (it was pre-Mania I can say that) I was able to play it for a little bit, and got halfway through Frozen Factory. When I was a kid, I loved this game, but now, that doesn’t hold true. I have so many issues here that I honestly don’t even know where to start. The gameplay honestly isn’t the worst, but it feels awkward at times, especially turning. However, we should get the elephant out of the room: Having to hold a button to immediately reach Sonic’s top speed is absolutely ridiculous. The Adventure formula allows for lots of free movement and exploration where you earn those top speeds by utilizing the skills you have. The Boost formula requires you to collect rings, perform tricks, collect White Wisp Capsules, or a combination of those in order to either continuously speed through levels as long as you can (Unleashed, Generations) or save it sparingly for moments where you’re able to reach your best speeds (Colors). This game instead takes the approach of holding down a singular button to immediately reach top speed. While this could be said is similar to the Boost formula, at least the Boost formula not only let you earn those top speeds, but actually incorporates the Boost formula into its levels well. By making Sonic immediately reach top speed, inclines and hills feel awkward and slow, and as a result makes the platforming feel really stiff, especially in 2D. The 2D in Colors and Generations wasn’t my favourite, but it definitely felt playable. Some of the 2D segments in this game feel absolutely abysmal since there’s no momentum meaning that you immediately lose speed when you double jump for example. Not only that, but the parkour elements they implemented don’t really get a chance to shine at all. There’s only a few segments where you could actually try parkour and even then it can usually be skipped, like how the penultimate level skips an entire parkour segment by letting you use the Hover Wisp. Speaking of, why are the Wisps back? The end of Colors established that the Wisps went back to their home planet, but the Lost Hex couldn’t possibly be it because weren’t the planets in Colors their main planets? What happened to Planet Wisp for instance? As for how the Wisps are used in game, they’re absolutely horrid. All of the returning Wisps play about the same except Rocket which is better than in Colors and Generations, but like the other three, it has a very niche use for a level or two. Laser appears more often, but you could genuinely never use this Wisp and nothing would change. As for the new Wisps, they all suck. Indigo Asteroid is the same as Violet Void from Sonic Colors DS but controls worse, Crimson Eagle I didn’t even know existed until Sky Road (the sixth world) and it’s just a copy of Hover, Magenta Rhythm took a bit to understand and by the time I did, it was gone, and Black Bomb and Grey Quake I didn’t even encounter once, mainly because the former is a reward in item capsule form, and the latter is exclusive to the two player race mode. Icing on the cake is I can count how many times I used all the new Wisps on one hand. It genuinely feels like they retconned the end of Colors just to make levels have a gimmick since they didn’t know what to do with their level design. Speaking of designs, every single level theme is a copy of the New Super Mario Bros. formula: Grass - Desert - Beach - Snow - Forest - Sky - Lava. This game genuinely feels like they’re trying so hard to be Mario, but it doesn’t work at all, especially since the concept is just Super Mario Galaxy but worse. One thing I love about every other Sonic game, from the good to the bad (except Sonic 4 Episode I) is that they tried to make unique Zones and level themes that you couldn’t find anywhere else. This is the same series with such unique areas like Chemical Plant, Hydrocity, City Escape, even areas based off of countries like Sonic Unleashed with the World Map. This game feels like it’s so devoid of creativity and it’s such a shame because Sonic Unleashed, Colors, and Generations were so good and you’d think they’d continue to be unique but they ultimately failed to do so. They don’t even end up following the themes most of the time, since Silent Forest has an ice level, Frozen Factory has a casino level, Desert Ruins has Honeycomb Highway AND a dessert themed level, etc. Funnily enough, I don’t even think that’s the worst part of the game. The worst part is easily the absolutely revolting excuse for a story I’ve ever seen in not just a Sonic game, but any game in general. The run down is that Sonic and Tails need to team up with Eggman because Sonic was careless and threw away Eggman’s control of the Deadly Six. The further this game goes, the more tonal shifts there are, with each character getting more and more angry at one another and resetting the status quo by the next cutscene. It honestly starts to feel edgy, but not in the funny bad way that Shadow the Hedgehog presents itself. Instead, you’re left with terrible moments like Sonic making a cold pun in the ice level’s cutscene, to Eggman ruthlessly insulting the Zeti (Deadly Six’s other name) saying he’ll strangle them alive (and this takes place in the same cutscene!). The worst part has to be Eggman’s betrayal at the end, because it’s been shown that Eggman is pretty loyal to those he teams up with, like how he teams up with Sonic and co. during Cannon’s Core of Sonic Adventure 2, or even just Dark Story in general. All of the so called drama the game sets up feels so artificial and it makes it more of a pain to sit through cutscenes to the point where I had to skip some. The Deadly Six are also very uninteresting characters, since all of them are supposed to represent one of the Seven Deadly Sins (including Eggman for some reason), but they end up coming off as characters with one punchline that get really annoying fast, especially since you hear them taunt Sonic during the second and fourth levels of each world. Speaking of annoying, this game requires you to grind a bit if you don’t defeat enough enemies or open enough capsules, since the last level of each area is locked behind a certain number of animals you need to rescue to open the level. My review of Sonic Rush Adventure described how I absolutely despised the idea of needing to grind in a Sonic game, so you can only imagine how I felt when I didn’t have enough animals rescued in Frozen Factory, Silent Forest, Sky Road, AND Lava Mountain. I had to constantly replay Honeycomb Highway since it was the only level where I can easily get a large sum of animals quickly. While I actually like that level and it was the only level I’d be okay with replaying, having to fight Zomom each time was tedious. Apparently the Zelda and Yoshi DLC’s help for getting animals and lives, but these aren’t available on PC without mods. All of the bosses can be defeated in two hits since you can charge up your homing attack, and as a result these become more boring than hard or anything else. The worst part is that after beating Lava Mountain Act 3, they play the cutscene for the final boss, but I didn’t even have enough animals saved, so instead of going directly to the fight, I had to replay Honeycomb Highway once again. If I was actually immersed in this game, that would’ve completely shattered that, but honestly this game sucks too much for me to actually feel anything but relief when it was over. Honestly, there isn’t much I can say that’s good. I can sum it up in three points: The graphics were nice, the game is polished, and the music is good. However, this doesn’t say much when Sonic games usually look nice, are usually polished, and usually have good music, the sole exception for all of these being Sonic 4 Episode I, but what Episode I has that say, Shadow the Hedgehog, and this game don’t is that it’s so short that you can numb your brain for an hour and be done with it. The other three are extremely long because you need to replay each time with a different character, but this game tries to extend it’s game time with levels locked behind animal count. I think it’s safe for me to say that this is easily the WORST 3D Sonic game where he is the only playable character, which makes this so much more disappointing. Overall, I would say unless you’re really interested in trying it for yourself, I would say you could make much better use of your time by playing something actually worth playing instead of this pitiful wasted potential of a game.

Beat the whole DLC in one session. The game is really hard to put down here because of how great the levels are. I could describe it as the feeling of playing Battle of the Birds for the first time, which is a huge compliment since I love that chapter to death. The open world is fun to explore and it really is just what I wanted from Alpine Skyline's open world. None of the levels are a pain to get through and none of them really drag on too long. The new customization options are really good and you can make Hat Kid looks different with the bat instead of the umbrella or a cozy sweater instead of the traditional outfit. Each part of the open world is colourful and vibrant and it's fun to explore each new area. The only thing holding this back from a perfect 5 stars is the final act. The very end is really underwhelming as I thought the level would be a bit longer but it kind of just ended somewhat abruptly in my opinion. Overall, I'd say this is definitely worth checking out if you loved the base game as it really feels like the perfect way to end a run of the game.

I've played the game multiple times prior to this review, but I decided to play it again in order to go through the game with the DLC's. Now that I'm done said DLC's, I'm logging them all. This game is still great, I love almost everything about it. Mafia Town is a great introduction to the game that's short but sweet and contains fun bonus missions. Battle of the Birds is my favourite part of the base game and the system of ratings to decide the winner of the award is really creative and unique. Subcon Forest is a close runner up, the contract system is interesting and exploring the haunted place is fun. However, Alpine Skyline is the odd one out for me. I think the game drops in quality here as the open area is long and tedious to explore. I liked it the first time I played years ago, but every time I come back to this game I find myself dreading Alpine Skyline. Though the quality does go back up for Time's End, a great way to end the game. The game's characters are funny and likeable and the voice acting is super strong. Overall, I'd say this game is definitely worth checking out as it has a lot of great aspects that make it fun for any player.

I honestly wish I played this version before the DS version because in short, I prefer the DS version more. Not that this was a bad game by any means, on the contrary I think it's a solid entry in the franchise, but I feel like the DS version is the better way to go for this one. I have two main critiques that bring the game a bit down for me. First of all, while the 3D sections are strong and very fun, the 2D sections are really stiff and slow paced. There are many points where the game goes from a fast paced segment to a slow waiting based segment where you need to hit switches to make obstacles move or stand on a slowly moving platform while waiting for it to get to the other side. Second, the levels feel way too short for something like Sonic. In fact, there wasn't really a lot of 3D in this game, sort of felt like the 2D was more of the focus. That wouldn't be too much of a problem if the platforming and camera's felt stiff. I like how Sonic Unleashed handled 2D segments, where they would constantly switch back and forth but also incorporate the fast paced speeds into the platforming rather than forcing the player to come to a complete stop in order to do some vertical platforming. Other than that, very solid game with a great soundtrack, unique environments, and a great mechanic with the Wisps. I like how Wisps make the Boost formula feel more controlled unlike other games where you can Boost to win. The comedy didn't really age well but it doesn't take away too much from the game. Overall, while a safe entry in the series with some flaws, it still holds up to this day and provides a good amount of fun for how short it is to complete (~4 hours).

So the Arctic Cruise was underwhelming. It's not horrible, but each level has their own pros and cons, though I'd say the cons outweigh the pros. The main issue is how huge the map is for how cramped some areas feel. The first level takes a long time when you're unfamiliar with the map, the second level has markers and arrows that show you where to go but don't really work well sometimes, and the third level has a different version of the map that can be annoying to navigate. The Time Rift was genuinely painful and made me stop playing for a little bit. Death Wish is a mixed bag for me as well. The main missions are fine, but the bonus missions ramp up the difficulty to a point where I wouldn't want to continue the level. Truthfully, I didn't actually finish Death Wish; I gave up when I got to "Wound-Up Windmill" and "Rift Collapse: Deep Sea." I think the saving grace of this DLC is that it still has the charm that A Hat in Time always had, so it wasn't super painful to play. I feel like if the game wasn't as naturally fun as it was, I'd rank this DLC lower. Overall, I would say this DLC is only worth playing if you're okay with challenging missions that can really test your patience.

I feel like at this point everyone knows this game sucks and why, and honestly I'd say it's much worse than '06 because at least that game is held back not by it's story or level design (at least, from what I've seen before I dropped it), but by all of the bugs that make it unplayable for me. This is playable, but fails in literally every other aspect. Since it's short and I can shut my brain off, I could get through it, but if this game was buggy as hell or went on longer than two hours, I don't think I could do it. Overall, major disappointment as expected.

First I'd like to mention that this review is based off of a casual single-player experience. I didn't collect all the Star Coins, but I plan to whenever I come back to this game. The level design is much better than the other two Mario games I recently played (Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels), though there are a few levels or gimmicks I didn't like, such as any gimmick from World 2 or the wall climbing in World 6. The difficulty is just fine, simple when you want to run through levels but harder when you want to collect the Star Coins. This isn't a complaint that would dock any points, but the world design is really boring since it follows the generic pattern of having a desert, ice world, water world, etc. I understand that this game is really old, but I wish the Mushroom Kingdom just had more unique scenery especially since the other 2D Mario games do the same thing. I would like to see a NSMB game with a world design like in the 3D games like Sunshine or Galaxy. Overall, very simple yet fun game that I definitely see myself returning to.