LoneSpeedsterDX
"Yo mama so HOT, Slenderman THOUGHT she was XBOX LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE"
2021
I didn’t realize this was on backloggd recently but now that I do I can finally give my full thoughts on this…uh…experience.
Sonic Omens is dreadful. I’m not gonna get into the whole Patreon debacle and instead I’m just gonna focus exclusively on the game’s mechanics and level design. Figure I could keep the focus of critiques narrowed that way.
First off, the controls are awful. Sonic’s steering is way too loose and sensitive making precise inputs a chore, His jump arc feels sluggish and slow, and overall there’s just not much to his moveset. It tries to mesh boost gameplay with Adventure gameplay but it just doesn’t work at all. It feels too all over the place and floaty compared to the responsive rock solid controls of Adventure, and it doesn’t have the tight handling and sense of weight and fluidity that the boost games have. It’s a jack of all trades and master of none. The homing attack is terrible because of how you can only use it when the camera faces an object, so often times you’ll be standing right in front of a spring or an enemy hitting the A button (if you’re using a gamepad like I am) but because the camera isn’t fixated in just the right spot, you won’t lock on to it. Sonic has this new enderbeam-esc ability that flings him into the air but for the most part it’s borderline pointless because the airboost is absurdly overpowered. You can no joke just airboost superman jump over like half the stage and the game just allows it because “WHOA LOOK HOW COOL DIS LOOKS SONIC’S GOIN SO FAST BEST GAME EVAR!!!!!!”. The only thing I like with these controls is the ability to continue a homing attack chain after an airboost, but other than that, it’s just not intuitive at all and doesn’t feel good to use. The plane controls are self explanatory with how bad they are, clunky loose handling with boring shooting based gameplay and obstacle courses that don’t lend these controls any favors either. Then you have Shadow. He’s basically like Sonic except he has Chaos powers that you can swap between with the Dpad, but DMC style switching this ain’t. Chaos Dash is probably the only useful one as it can propel you upward and can skip specific platforming sections, although the game never really explains how to pull this off, otherwise it’s a middle of the road airdash that kills your speed, Chaos Blast is only useful in boring enemy rooms (which yes, thank you Sonic Omens, that’s DEFINITELY what Sonic as a franchise needed more of!), Chaos Spear is a projectile attack that’s a nightmare to position and aim correctly and who’s only purpose is to hit switches, and Chaos Control, a time slowing ability that also slows the speed at which your camera turns. It’s pretty hilarious.
The level design is atrocious. A lot of it is big just for the sake of being big without adding anything meaningful to it, giving it the illusion that it’s more expansive than it actually is. For example, there’s a section near the first water running area in Chao Paradise where if you venture off to the right there’s just this entire empty space full of nothing who’s only purpose is to house a single red ring and nothing else. After you get it, that area ceases to have any sort of purpose. The entire game is flooded with examples like this, or moreover the game will have like 2 simple rather primitively designed pathways to choose from but because they’re wide and big you get people going “YEAH I LIKE IT BECAUSE IT’S BIG!!!” The platforming is unbelievably simplistic, pace breaking, and doesn’t work well with these controls at all, the later half of this project has an over abundance of hitting switches and killing enemies instead of the shallow spectacle filled high speed it lures you with in the first half. The giant tree level is possibly the worst level in the entire game no question, confusing layout, awful platforming, boring puzzles, an over abundance of store bought assets copy pasted everywhere with no thought for artistic cohesion, it’s a giant mess.
And that’s all this game is. It has controls designed for you to skip huge chunks of the stage combined with wishy wooshy “SUPAH COOL” particle effects bloom motion blur and camera shaking to make it look like it’s more impressive than it actually is. It’s the textbook definition of “style over substance”. The bosses are godawful as well, the first one is an arena fight with a boss that takes forever to kill and has egg pawns blindside you because you can’t see them coming with how the camera focuses exclusively on the boss at all times (and thus the homing attack doesn’t even work against these Egg pawns either), the 2nd one is in the plane and it has no intuitive way of knowing where it’s going to attack or when, partially because everything is covered up with a hideous sandstorm effect, and the final one is just “mash A and win” and I’m not even kidding. The voice acting is horrendous, Sonic badly tries to imitate Jason Griffith’s over exaggerated obnoxious performance (of which I’m also not a fan of), and Tails and Shadow don’t even sound like native English speakers, Shadow DISTRACTINGLY so. And please don’t give me the tired excuse of “it’s a fangame therefore you can’t criticize it or be harsh with it” as if fangames are somehow exempt of criticism, especially with how everyone was sucking this game off big time when it resurfaced and claimed it was “da best sonic game/fangame ever!!!”, then I’m gonna judge it as such, simple as that. This one isn’t even worth downloading unless you really want to make yourself physically ill.
Sonic Omens is dreadful. I’m not gonna get into the whole Patreon debacle and instead I’m just gonna focus exclusively on the game’s mechanics and level design. Figure I could keep the focus of critiques narrowed that way.
First off, the controls are awful. Sonic’s steering is way too loose and sensitive making precise inputs a chore, His jump arc feels sluggish and slow, and overall there’s just not much to his moveset. It tries to mesh boost gameplay with Adventure gameplay but it just doesn’t work at all. It feels too all over the place and floaty compared to the responsive rock solid controls of Adventure, and it doesn’t have the tight handling and sense of weight and fluidity that the boost games have. It’s a jack of all trades and master of none. The homing attack is terrible because of how you can only use it when the camera faces an object, so often times you’ll be standing right in front of a spring or an enemy hitting the A button (if you’re using a gamepad like I am) but because the camera isn’t fixated in just the right spot, you won’t lock on to it. Sonic has this new enderbeam-esc ability that flings him into the air but for the most part it’s borderline pointless because the airboost is absurdly overpowered. You can no joke just airboost superman jump over like half the stage and the game just allows it because “WHOA LOOK HOW COOL DIS LOOKS SONIC’S GOIN SO FAST BEST GAME EVAR!!!!!!”. The only thing I like with these controls is the ability to continue a homing attack chain after an airboost, but other than that, it’s just not intuitive at all and doesn’t feel good to use. The plane controls are self explanatory with how bad they are, clunky loose handling with boring shooting based gameplay and obstacle courses that don’t lend these controls any favors either. Then you have Shadow. He’s basically like Sonic except he has Chaos powers that you can swap between with the Dpad, but DMC style switching this ain’t. Chaos Dash is probably the only useful one as it can propel you upward and can skip specific platforming sections, although the game never really explains how to pull this off, otherwise it’s a middle of the road airdash that kills your speed, Chaos Blast is only useful in boring enemy rooms (which yes, thank you Sonic Omens, that’s DEFINITELY what Sonic as a franchise needed more of!), Chaos Spear is a projectile attack that’s a nightmare to position and aim correctly and who’s only purpose is to hit switches, and Chaos Control, a time slowing ability that also slows the speed at which your camera turns. It’s pretty hilarious.
The level design is atrocious. A lot of it is big just for the sake of being big without adding anything meaningful to it, giving it the illusion that it’s more expansive than it actually is. For example, there’s a section near the first water running area in Chao Paradise where if you venture off to the right there’s just this entire empty space full of nothing who’s only purpose is to house a single red ring and nothing else. After you get it, that area ceases to have any sort of purpose. The entire game is flooded with examples like this, or moreover the game will have like 2 simple rather primitively designed pathways to choose from but because they’re wide and big you get people going “YEAH I LIKE IT BECAUSE IT’S BIG!!!” The platforming is unbelievably simplistic, pace breaking, and doesn’t work well with these controls at all, the later half of this project has an over abundance of hitting switches and killing enemies instead of the shallow spectacle filled high speed it lures you with in the first half. The giant tree level is possibly the worst level in the entire game no question, confusing layout, awful platforming, boring puzzles, an over abundance of store bought assets copy pasted everywhere with no thought for artistic cohesion, it’s a giant mess.
And that’s all this game is. It has controls designed for you to skip huge chunks of the stage combined with wishy wooshy “SUPAH COOL” particle effects bloom motion blur and camera shaking to make it look like it’s more impressive than it actually is. It’s the textbook definition of “style over substance”. The bosses are godawful as well, the first one is an arena fight with a boss that takes forever to kill and has egg pawns blindside you because you can’t see them coming with how the camera focuses exclusively on the boss at all times (and thus the homing attack doesn’t even work against these Egg pawns either), the 2nd one is in the plane and it has no intuitive way of knowing where it’s going to attack or when, partially because everything is covered up with a hideous sandstorm effect, and the final one is just “mash A and win” and I’m not even kidding. The voice acting is horrendous, Sonic badly tries to imitate Jason Griffith’s over exaggerated obnoxious performance (of which I’m also not a fan of), and Tails and Shadow don’t even sound like native English speakers, Shadow DISTRACTINGLY so. And please don’t give me the tired excuse of “it’s a fangame therefore you can’t criticize it or be harsh with it” as if fangames are somehow exempt of criticism, especially with how everyone was sucking this game off big time when it resurfaced and claimed it was “da best sonic game/fangame ever!!!”, then I’m gonna judge it as such, simple as that. This one isn’t even worth downloading unless you really want to make yourself physically ill.
2003
Let me fill you in with some perspective. I'm someone who used to HATE this game. I hated the controls, the stage gimmicks, the combat, the obnoxious casino levels, the fact that you had to play the game essentially 4 times to fully beat it, etc. I put it down for years after I beat it and that was the end of it.
But years later when I returned to it, I was willing to try and put in the effort to work at getting better at this game's controls and mechanics, learn speedrun tech, all that jazz. I wanted to see what others saw in this game, and low and behold, after putting a lot of time in to improve at this game, Sonic Heroes has quickly become a game I despised, to one of my favorite Sonic games of all time.
I think we should start with the control issue, yes speed formation is slippery and finnicky on a first playthrough, but you have other styles to switch to, power and flight. Both of these are slower and have better traction so it's easier to get a handling on the terrain, but once you DO master speed formation, the movement abilities and cool tricks you can do is second to none. You can rocket accel up slopes and ramps to bypass fan gliding sections, use tornado jump as a means of a double jump, slide off a platform and jump before the animation ends to get crazy distance in the air, combining rocket accel with Tails or Knuckles to get crazy distance, it's super satisfying to pull off.
And in terms of the combat, I'll be the first to say that while it isn't amazing, I think it's very interesting and fun to use for a platformer. You have different means of attacks and different strategies for different enemies (like flying metal enemies needing to be stunned by Tails before it can be taken care of by Knuckles). Knuckles straight punches are super effective at clearing hoards of enemies super fast at the cost of being pretty slippery, but you also have the much safer but slower fireball dunk to take care of enemies this way. Faster combat being a trade off for looser control, while the safer option is more slow. Risk and reward design like this is present all throughout Heroes. Another example of this is using the more unwieldy rocket accel to take off shields and flip the turtle enemies (or even use poles) without slowing down versus stopping to use the whirlwind attack and dealing less damage overall. Leveling up throughout a stage also increases your combat effectiveness tenfold; each character can level up 3 times in a stage, with all levels being reset if you die, rewarding skillful play if you keep your characters leveled throughout. max level speed or flight characters can clear a room much much faster than they originally could against Power, with Power formation absolutely slaughtering giant brutes at max level. And then you get team blast which nukes the entire area you're in killing all enemies on screen, and can also have different effects depending on the team you pick. It's usually best to save Team Blast for when you really need it (such as an area full of enemies with a tough bigger brute character with armor), rather than using it whenever you feel like it.
The levels themselves are a blast to traverse through as well. The levels are expansive with different paths and shortcuts to take with a decent length to each level without any of them really overstaying their welcome. Combine this with the excellent movement mechanics in conjunction with the combat and you have a marvelous high speed platformer.
It's not all perfect though, certain issues I had with the game then still are prevalent now. The casino stages absolutely blow. I don't know who was in charge of the pinball physics needed to go up the tables or steer in Bingo Highway but they completely failed at it. The physics are just all over the place and fluctuate on a whim, often times I can be holding a direction and Sonic just refuses to go in that direction and ends up falling to his death. These can make the pinball sections take forever as you can be constantly stuck on the table because the controls just refuse to work with you at all. The special stages are also still awful. The act of getting to them is fine enough (collecting a key locked in a cage and keeping it throughout the level without getting hurt) but the special stage itself controls like garbage and it's near impossible to see obstacles coming in time while moving at such a ridiculous speed. Team Chaotix as a whole is pretty unremarkable as well, with their gameplay being mission focused. Easily the worst out of all the other teams. The game forcing you to play it multiple times can be a turn off but since I love the core gameplay and level design I'm at least somewhat willing to look past this.
Overall I get why people can not like this game I really do. And I also understand if taking the time to master the controls and mechanics and really "git gud" at the game isn't a guarantee you'll like it (heck I did the same for DMC4 and Sonic Unleashed and I still hate both those games), but I employ you to at the very least give it another look at with everything I said in mind. Sonic Heroes is a very weird but extremely rewarding experience. (Also you don't have that stupid Chao raising crap and the upgrade system is gone + no mechs so I consider this better than SA2 by default. Maybe one day I'll try and 100% the game and get Super Hard Mode.)
But years later when I returned to it, I was willing to try and put in the effort to work at getting better at this game's controls and mechanics, learn speedrun tech, all that jazz. I wanted to see what others saw in this game, and low and behold, after putting a lot of time in to improve at this game, Sonic Heroes has quickly become a game I despised, to one of my favorite Sonic games of all time.
I think we should start with the control issue, yes speed formation is slippery and finnicky on a first playthrough, but you have other styles to switch to, power and flight. Both of these are slower and have better traction so it's easier to get a handling on the terrain, but once you DO master speed formation, the movement abilities and cool tricks you can do is second to none. You can rocket accel up slopes and ramps to bypass fan gliding sections, use tornado jump as a means of a double jump, slide off a platform and jump before the animation ends to get crazy distance in the air, combining rocket accel with Tails or Knuckles to get crazy distance, it's super satisfying to pull off.
And in terms of the combat, I'll be the first to say that while it isn't amazing, I think it's very interesting and fun to use for a platformer. You have different means of attacks and different strategies for different enemies (like flying metal enemies needing to be stunned by Tails before it can be taken care of by Knuckles). Knuckles straight punches are super effective at clearing hoards of enemies super fast at the cost of being pretty slippery, but you also have the much safer but slower fireball dunk to take care of enemies this way. Faster combat being a trade off for looser control, while the safer option is more slow. Risk and reward design like this is present all throughout Heroes. Another example of this is using the more unwieldy rocket accel to take off shields and flip the turtle enemies (or even use poles) without slowing down versus stopping to use the whirlwind attack and dealing less damage overall. Leveling up throughout a stage also increases your combat effectiveness tenfold; each character can level up 3 times in a stage, with all levels being reset if you die, rewarding skillful play if you keep your characters leveled throughout. max level speed or flight characters can clear a room much much faster than they originally could against Power, with Power formation absolutely slaughtering giant brutes at max level. And then you get team blast which nukes the entire area you're in killing all enemies on screen, and can also have different effects depending on the team you pick. It's usually best to save Team Blast for when you really need it (such as an area full of enemies with a tough bigger brute character with armor), rather than using it whenever you feel like it.
The levels themselves are a blast to traverse through as well. The levels are expansive with different paths and shortcuts to take with a decent length to each level without any of them really overstaying their welcome. Combine this with the excellent movement mechanics in conjunction with the combat and you have a marvelous high speed platformer.
It's not all perfect though, certain issues I had with the game then still are prevalent now. The casino stages absolutely blow. I don't know who was in charge of the pinball physics needed to go up the tables or steer in Bingo Highway but they completely failed at it. The physics are just all over the place and fluctuate on a whim, often times I can be holding a direction and Sonic just refuses to go in that direction and ends up falling to his death. These can make the pinball sections take forever as you can be constantly stuck on the table because the controls just refuse to work with you at all. The special stages are also still awful. The act of getting to them is fine enough (collecting a key locked in a cage and keeping it throughout the level without getting hurt) but the special stage itself controls like garbage and it's near impossible to see obstacles coming in time while moving at such a ridiculous speed. Team Chaotix as a whole is pretty unremarkable as well, with their gameplay being mission focused. Easily the worst out of all the other teams. The game forcing you to play it multiple times can be a turn off but since I love the core gameplay and level design I'm at least somewhat willing to look past this.
Overall I get why people can not like this game I really do. And I also understand if taking the time to master the controls and mechanics and really "git gud" at the game isn't a guarantee you'll like it (heck I did the same for DMC4 and Sonic Unleashed and I still hate both those games), but I employ you to at the very least give it another look at with everything I said in mind. Sonic Heroes is a very weird but extremely rewarding experience. (Also you don't have that stupid Chao raising crap and the upgrade system is gone + no mechs so I consider this better than SA2 by default. Maybe one day I'll try and 100% the game and get Super Hard Mode.)
2014
This game makes me climax
2006
I still consider this to be one of the worst games I've ever played period. The controls are way too precise and annoying, there's zero sense of fluidity or acceleration of any kind to be had with the movement, every character reacts the exact same way to running on any terrain so there's barely any sense of genuine speed, the level design is all complete garbage, the combat in this game is monotonous and in most cases required to progress within a stage, the camera is an embarrassing mess, the game is automated more than Sonic Forces, all the extra playable characters suck, the bosses are the absolute worst in the entire series, the stages just drag without anything interesting happening, the hub areas are all vacant and empty with the same godawful copy pasted town missions spewed all over the place, the loading times are awful and extremely frequent, the game has massive amounts of slowdown almost constantly, there are bugs and glitches galore, the plot is boring and pretentious, the visuals, aesthetics and stage themes are bland and forgettable, you get the idea. And one would think it would at the very least get better when you play Shadow and Silver's campaign afterwards, but no. They're even WORSE than Sonic is (Shadow's gameplay including "mash a and win" combat encounters and vehicle sections somehow worse than they were in Shadow the Hedgehog, and Silver's gameplay boiling down to "pick stuff up and throw it back at them: the game" with environmental puzzles that are all basically "hold the right trigger and I'll solve this for you"). I don't even think this game is so bad it's good, because that would imply me having any sort of enjoyment with this game ironic or otherwise, but I can't. You can't even laugh at how bad it is, you can just sit there and be depressed as the game drags itself on for another 10 hours or so. Any sort of slightly amusing bug or glitch gets old after the first 3 viewings and then you quickly realize how terrible this game really is.
This is a game that I don't think has any redeeming qualities whatsoever. None. I don't even think the soundtrack is good despite what everyone keeps telling me. Everything in this game is simply a bad idea done badly, and I would lose nothing if this game never existed in the first place. And no, I'm not gonna acknowledge how "AMBITIOUS" this game is or how much "PASSION" and "EFFORT" went into it. I'm not gonna start handing out participation trophies for games doing the bare minimum of having ideas that I don't even think are good anyway. Absolute slog of a game. If I could rate it 0/5 I would.
This is a game that I don't think has any redeeming qualities whatsoever. None. I don't even think the soundtrack is good despite what everyone keeps telling me. Everything in this game is simply a bad idea done badly, and I would lose nothing if this game never existed in the first place. And no, I'm not gonna acknowledge how "AMBITIOUS" this game is or how much "PASSION" and "EFFORT" went into it. I'm not gonna start handing out participation trophies for games doing the bare minimum of having ideas that I don't even think are good anyway. Absolute slog of a game. If I could rate it 0/5 I would.
1991
Sonic 1 deserves more respect
Honest to god this is the best Classic game (next to Mania of course). I would usually put Sonic 1 lower than the other Classic games prior but after a while I replayed this game and started messing around with it some more and honestly nowadays I actually prefer it to Sonic 2, 3, and ESPECIALLY CD and Chaotix, though those two aren't particularly a high bar if you ask me.
I think the simplicity in Sonic 1's design philosophy lends better to the game as a whole, there's no wishy wooshy automated speed sections or segmented level design that plagued Sonic 3 for instance. It's just fun to mess around and build speed no matter where you are in the level, and most of the "slow sections" that I hear people complain endlessly about can actually be skipped with clever play, whether it's the two lava rides in Marble zone, the spiked platforms and slopes in Spring Yard zone, heck you can even get past the entirety of Labyrinth zone without stopping to grab a single air bubble (though that zone is still a bit of a chore regardless). There still is some forced waiting sections don't get me wrong, Spring Yard still has plenty of elevators and Marble has that forced lava boat ride at the final act, but for the most part I definitely think this is by far the best classic game to actually use "le momentum rolling physics" well. It's just fun to experiment in a variety of scenarios, on top of having the better classic bosses that the series has had. They still aren't amazing but for the first attempt at creating bosses for the franchise I think they're well handled. The emeralds only get you a "good ending" instead of a super form so I don't think they're worth going after but if you do the special stages are what I would also put over 2's halfpipe or 3's godawful blue spheres any day of the week. As a whole, again, Sonic 1 is more "simple" compared to the other Classic games, but that's honestly why I prefer it in the end.
Honest to god this is the best Classic game (next to Mania of course). I would usually put Sonic 1 lower than the other Classic games prior but after a while I replayed this game and started messing around with it some more and honestly nowadays I actually prefer it to Sonic 2, 3, and ESPECIALLY CD and Chaotix, though those two aren't particularly a high bar if you ask me.
I think the simplicity in Sonic 1's design philosophy lends better to the game as a whole, there's no wishy wooshy automated speed sections or segmented level design that plagued Sonic 3 for instance. It's just fun to mess around and build speed no matter where you are in the level, and most of the "slow sections" that I hear people complain endlessly about can actually be skipped with clever play, whether it's the two lava rides in Marble zone, the spiked platforms and slopes in Spring Yard zone, heck you can even get past the entirety of Labyrinth zone without stopping to grab a single air bubble (though that zone is still a bit of a chore regardless). There still is some forced waiting sections don't get me wrong, Spring Yard still has plenty of elevators and Marble has that forced lava boat ride at the final act, but for the most part I definitely think this is by far the best classic game to actually use "le momentum rolling physics" well. It's just fun to experiment in a variety of scenarios, on top of having the better classic bosses that the series has had. They still aren't amazing but for the first attempt at creating bosses for the franchise I think they're well handled. The emeralds only get you a "good ending" instead of a super form so I don't think they're worth going after but if you do the special stages are what I would also put over 2's halfpipe or 3's godawful blue spheres any day of the week. As a whole, again, Sonic 1 is more "simple" compared to the other Classic games, but that's honestly why I prefer it in the end.
Whenever you encounter someone that genuinely seems to like this game, be sure to ask them how many levels they’ve beaten. 9 times out of 10 they’ll respond with “oh I haven’t gotten past the Toxic Caves level but it was fun!”
Works like a charm
Works like a charm
2019
Mobile games were a mistake
2022
Man...what a journey this game has been, huh?
Going into the initial reveal from both the May 2021 Sonic Central to the official reveal at the 2021 Game Awards, I was very cautious about this game after being previously burnt out by Sonic Forces and how hollow and uninspired that game was.
...sorry, did I say cautious? I meant outright skeptical.
"The same director and team who made a game as narrow and as linear as Forces are gonna now attempt an open world esc Sonic game? Yeah, sure, THIS looks like it's gonna go well."
But in the end, I still hoped that this game would be good. I always want to hope that, I love this character and this franchise, and I want him to succeed after all. I never really want to wish doom and gloom upon a game before it's already come out, but man did things already start out ROUGH. The initial IGN reveal during the summer of 2022 absolutely crushed me. The gameplay didn't look AWFUL per say, but it looked very aimless and boring, not helping things were the rough framerate and atrocious pop in (They basically revealed an early alpha or beta without even telling us that it was an earlier build), and my heart sunk. After all that waiting, THIS was what they were gonna reveal to us? THIS??? My hopes were rock bottom at that point, but as time passed something peculiar happened: the more they showed off the game, the better it looked. The more they showcased, the more my interest grew and before long, I was actually getting excited for this game. Well, maybe not excited, cautiously optimistic at best. Again, Forces REALLY burnt me out here, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. There was some stuff that bummed me out before release regardless, like the technical aspects and Cyberspace (I’ll discuss both of these later on don’t worry), but when my copy arrived a couple of days after launch, I legit couldn’t wait to play it. I tried my best to go in blind, as I often have a bad habit of spoiling myself on things I haven’t seen before release (it’s how I basically knew most of the major surprises Sonic Movie 2 had to offer before I saw the movie myself), and with how much they were playing up the mystery element with this game, and the fact that they got none other than Ian Flynn HIMSELF to write the story? I knew we were in for something special at the very least. So, did it end up being good in the end?
Oh man, you’d better believe it.
It’s not perfect of course, no game is, it’s not without its fair share of blemishes and annoyances, but man, this is bar none the most fun I’ve had with 3D Sonic in a long LONG while.
Starting off with the story, I think this may just be single handedly the best story in a Sonic game to DATE. Keep in mind that I’m someone who hasn’t really considered a majority of the game’s stories to be good at all (I honestly only really think SA2’s story was pretty decent and even that had issues), but the fact that Ian Flynn just casually made a story leaps and bounds over anything I’d ever seen from the games is amazing. I already knew the comics had it good for a while, specifically IDW, but I was so surprised at how invested and how engaged I was with what was happening the whole way through. If there’s any takeaway from Sonic Frontiers, it’s that it should be mandatory that Ian Flynn must write for every mainline Sonic game from now on. The characterization of every character in this game is top notch, Sonic himself is FINALLY back to being legitimately cool again, Tails’ messy characterization since Unleashed finally gets addressed, even Eggman gets some surprising development to how he views his relationship with Sage, the semi-main antagonist (Though admittedly most of that was relegated to the optional Egg memos). At first, I wasn’t a big fan of Sage with how cold and sterile her mannerisms were, and how she only spoke cryptically and how she would only talk about nothing but data and percentages and whatnot, I’ve seen this stuff before when it comes to mysterious villain characters. However, the more you watch her develop her relationships with Eggman and how she views Sonic and his relationships with his friends throughout the course of the game, the more and more compelling she becomes. The plot and general writing overall can be a bit too fan-servicey at times and rely a bit TOO much on referencing past games and events for no reason, but I’m fine with it honestly, and it generally feels like there’s a lot of effort placed into making Sonic’s universe feel more connected for future titles. Some of the references definitely put me off guard and got me excited for what’s to come. And man, the dialogue too is top notch, not every line hit of course, but on the whole, it was just so well written. I was a bit put off by Roger Craig Smith’s deeper toned Sonic, but I warmed up to it quite a bit, he sounds super natural and most of the time he doesn’t sound SUPER deep I don’t think. The rest of the cast put in solid performances as well. Overall if these kinds of stories are what we have to look forward to in the future, sign me up immediately, I loved this.
But that’s just the story of course, how does the gameplay of Sonic Frontiers hold up?
In a major change for the franchise, Sonic Frontiers opts to put Sonic in a vast open area and uh…basically just do whatever he wants. It’s not fully open world, which I think was smart, it’s more akin to like, Mario Odyssey or Bowser’s Fury on a MUCH larger scale to accommodate for Sonic’s high speed. A vast open area consisting of small linear platforming challenges in order to nab collectables. In Frontiers’ case, these collectables are the memory tokens you use to save your friends and progress the story. These aren’t the only important collectables of course, you also get portal gears, red and blue seeds of attack and defense respectively, purple coins around the overworld, but for all intents and purposes the memory tokens are the main thing you’re going to be collecting. Frontiers has an almost Zen like flow to its gameplay, leaping from one obstacle course in the sky or ground, getting launched from it and trying to land on another without stopping, it’s great stuff. But in general, the game is designed for you to take it at your own pace, exploring at your leisure, fighting whatever enemies you want to fight, tackling cyberspace stages, etc. The puzzles are rather simplistic but I wouldn’t call them braindead or anything. If anything, they’re a step above the typical “pick up stone and put it into corresponding hole” which makes up like, 99% of the puzzles of previous Sonic games, and there are some legitimately interesting puzzles in this game (like the laser light puzzle) the more you go on. Even the starting puzzles you mess around with (walking on light panels, hitting balls into hoops, etc) do get expanded upon on later islands, albeit not by much, again the puzzles in this game are REALLY not brain taxing in the slightest. They’re just simple non-time-wasting tasks to do, so the fact that I willingly go out and seek these puzzles speaks a lot for just how much simple fun they offer. It also helps that whenever you complete a puzzle you not only get a reward with either one of the seeds, but it also expands the map in a grid-like fashion, helping you better see where to go but also potentially uncovering extra tokens to find, cyberspace portals, and even more puzzles to even further expand the map, there’s always a sense of genuine discovery and a sense of “oh nice I almost missed that” to it. Completing these puzzles also opens up ancient rails to spawn which acts as a semi fast travel system around the island, and this is a genuine brilliant feature but I’ll get into why that is later on.
However, the puzzles have never really been the selling point to Sonic Frontiers, it’s the feeling of tearing through vast open landscapes at incredibly high speeds. It certainly helps that this is by far one of the best controlling 3D Sonics I have ever played. In terms of sheer ground movement, it’s EASILY better than anything I’ve experienced from this franchise. Even with the default settings active Sonic’s speed is good when boosting and his turning is ultra-sharp and precise, it feels absolutely incredible. I haven’t felt 3D Sonic movement this good since the Adventure games, but even the Adventure games were very finnicky and unreliable at incredibly high speeds, in Frontiers even when power boosting (which makes you go even faster) you can do ultra-tight donuts repeatedly, there’s nothing like this handling at all (and considering the main mechanic of Frontiers is running literal circles around enemies, it’d have to be smooth). This makes weaving in and out of enemies and obstacles a non-issue, platforming becomes incredibly second nature, and just the feeling of blasting away through open deserts or grassy fields feels so gratifying, it’s great stuff all around. The jump however feels less good. It doesn’t keep your boost speed at all which feels slightly unnatural and a bit limiting, but the weirdest thing about it is that it has this, what I can only describe as a Mario 64 esc turning syndrome, where you can’t just instantly turn your jump around on a dime but Sonic instead needs to swing alllllll the way around to turn the other direction, it makes things like, say, trying to reverse directions in mid air near impossible without resorting to airboosting (which is noticeably gimped from previous games until you max out your speed stat), and it makes situations like trying to nab collectables on the very edge of tiny platforms very awkward to do because of this. Between this and the fact that your jump doesn’t keep your speed, I wouldn’t be against the short hop returning as a way to keep your speed and to clear small gaps that you otherwise wouldn’t need a full jump to do so. But overall besides the jump his movement is top notch. His reaction to the terrain is a bit weird. There are times where he just sticks like glue to his surroundings and it can be kinda useful to have Sonic scale certain near vertical hills with ease (though it’s inconsistent and I wish you could just run up any wall you wanted, recreate that one part of the Sonic X intro where he just zips across mountains and whatnot with ease), makes traversal that much more free form, but if you wanna launch off a cliff and get some big air oftentimes he just sticks to the floor and careens straight down and it can be pretty annoying. There are quirks but overall his movement is great.
The platforming challenges floating above the world are a bit simple and odd in structure but they’re also incredibly bite sized and short so they never overstay their welcome. And again, it can be quite fun maintaining a sense of flow launching from one platforming challenge and landing on another without touching the ground. You even get Lost World style wall running and parkour (while not fully realized due to many instances of automation, I do think it’s actually way more fun to pull off than in Lost World). A part of me wished that these challenges got way more difficult and complex as they went on and that they were more naturally ingrained into the world, and while they get…slightly more complex I don’t feel it’s enough. It’s still fun on like, a simple base level but it never goes beyond that I feel. Some portions of these challenges are also in 2D and I genuinely wish there were more clear indications of where these transitions were going to occur because it’s really painful how much your flow is broken when you’re trying to go somewhere and you get sprung or dash pad boosted into a 2D section that you need to actively FIGHT to get out of, it’s incredibly annoying and could’ve been handled way better (Chaos Island is especially guilty of this). These obstacle courses and item collecting admittedly can get a bit repetitive after a while, there were a couple of points where I felt burnt out and needed to take a break, which is why I personally feel Frontiers is best enjoyed in sessions and not by marathoning the entire game. Still, equally there were plenty of times where I just could not put the controller down and always wanted to keep playing so I guess it depends. There is also proper momentum usage you can use to fling yourself around the island in funny ways, particularly with the rails. Remember the ancient rails I mentioned earlier that allows for sort of a fast travel system? Well you can also boost and jump off the rail while holding boost to keep all the speed you have to shoot off into the sky (amplified even further with the Power Boost), it’s very satisfying to pull off and can even be used to reach higher areas for extra collectables or puzzles (like the canyon walls in Ares Island for instance). You can also do this with geometry too but it’s inconsistent, Sonic has the glue tendency like I mentioned earlier but other times you trip over a tiny pebble and launch into the sky. I would find it frustrating but I overall don’t to be honest, it’s both fun and admittedly pretty funny.
Combat is very simple but overall satisfying. It’s not DMC or Bayonetta level depth or anywhere close (I don’t think Sonic combat has ever been), it’s very segmented and has some nice quirks like dodge canceling and the ability to actually juggle enemies, but taken on its own it gets pretty repetitive if not supplemented with interesting enemy design, and thankfully I think Frontiers manages great variety. Stuff like the Ninja variants actually, yknow, fight back against you so they’re engaging at the start, and the rest of the guardians have very unique ways of defeating them extremely quickly and it’s actually quite fun to discover. Wall running up Tower variants and quick cylooping the top to instantly destroy the other stacks, attacking and quick cylooping the feet of Spider instead of waiting for him to attack and cyloop each individual one, quick cylooping Sumo to instantly rattle off a ton of hits, it reminds me a lot of Sonic Heroes combat in a way, a relatively simple combat flow but the joy comes from optimizing the fastest way to take enemies down, and thankfully Frontiers offers a good amount of enemy variety so things don’t get too stale too quickly. The sound design is extremely gratifying as well, attacks, parries, and special moves hit with so much crunch and oomph that it’s always extremely fun to just wail on something on a surface level. My main gripes come from the parry, there’s no timing involved whatsoever so it ends up being so unsatisfying to use, you just hold the button down and instantly counter any attack thrown your way. It would’ve made more sense to RELEASE the button to initiate the parry if you still wanted to keep the “hold the button down to parry” system. The normal soldier enemies became tiring and something I actively ignored as the game progressed as I didn’t get much joy taking these variants down at all. I also don’t really appreciate enemies that yoink camera control away from the player every time you pass by them (I’m looking at you, you homing attack bubble spawning jerk). Combat also kinda falls flat in terms of moves completely replacing actions you would normally do in the overworld. For example, if you wanted to airboost to get extra distance across a platform and immediately homing attack an enemy, OOPS, you’ll use the homing shot instead. Or say, if you wanted to airboost and jump or stomp to reposition, OOPS, you’ll cross slash or loop kick instead, idk why these actions couldn’t have just been simple button combinations instead of one button pressed after the other. I’m also extremely disappointed in the skill tree, it’s very small and it doesn’t take a long time to unlock everything at all. (shoot once you get the trick system upgrade you can pretty much max out the entire thing by the second island, it’s super deflating). It was one worry I had going in when I saw the skill tree and unfortunately, my fear turned out to be true.
The major boss encounters on each island are easily the best boss fights I have ever experienced in any Sonic game ever and I’m not even exaggerating. Yeah yeah, they’re more spectacle than substance but like…that’s literally how it’s been in every Super Sonic final boss, a gimmicky oftentimes terrible minigame esc control scheme that’s supposed to make you feel powerful but often never does. I genuinely can’t think of a single one I’ve played that left me satisfied or left me feeling anything other than pure apathy. With these boss fights, the main combat mechanics you use in the main game are carried over, just given a Super Sonic boost, and the sheer spectacle and over the top action are increased to degrees so monumentally high that I was absolutely blown away when I first experienced them. I’m gonna be honest, I have no clue how they’re ever gonna top the first 3 Titan fights in the future, they were just that amazing. Unfortunately, the final 2 boss fights were pretty lame, the final titan fight was just a reskinned Giganto but with worse spectacle and a confusing unintuitive strategy to fight him, and while I won’t spoil the true final boss it’s even MORE underwhelming than the final titan, especially compared to all the insane fights we’ve took part in throughout the course of the game.
Finally, and rather unceremoniously, we come to Cyberspace. Sonic Team’s answer to traditional Sonic levels. These are where you use portal gears on and where you primarily get vault keys from. This is easily the weakest area of the game, for multiple reasons. The first being control, Sonic’s handling in Cyberspace is so much worse than the Open Zone controls it’s not even funny. His steering is extremely stiff, he’s even slower than before ESPECIALLY in 2D, his momentum-killing awkward turning jump is still a problem, he just doesn’t feel good. I wouldn’t say it’s as bad as like, Forces, because his acceleration isn’t jank and the overall handling is better, but it’s still nowhere near as good as Generations or Colors. What’s even worse are the levels themselves. For one, there’s only 4 level aesthetics for Cyberspace: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary, and the new City theme (which I am hereby dubbing either “Cyber City”, or the “Information Superhighway” and nobody can tell me otherwise). Visually they look fine enough, but I think I can attest for many when I say that I am tired, absolutely EXHAUSTED of seeing Green Hill, Chemical Plant, and even Sky Sanctuary again. Did they just not learn anything from Forces and didn’t hear about the thousands of people complaining about them reusing Green Hill for the umpteenth time? The cyberspace aesthetics are really neat though, with how neon trails of light often zoom across the terrain, the terrain itself is broken and distorted and endlessly warping in the distance like a corrupt program. I think it hits the hardest with the Cyber City, I really love this stage aesthetic. The sprawling twisting highways with supposed traffic warping at incredible speeds up and down and all around, Skyscrapers turned upside down and sideways, abandoned cars as obstacles, tanks and helicopters (apparently from GUN) as enemies, and stop signs, road signs and lights displayed in a glitchy unnatural state throughout these twisting turning highways, I really enjoy this. The level design itself however is ripped unapologetically from other games in the franchise, mainly Sonic Generations, Unleashed, and even Adventure 2. Idk what makes the game think I would want to play through a Generations level but chopped up into bits and pieces and with worse controls but bold move I suppose. Some level design set pieces from these different games are also there but ring hollow, like you have the rocket section in Metal Harbor but without the impending timer ticking down or a rocket of any kind because it’s draped in the chemical plant skin, or the bridge in Gens Modern Green Hill where you can stomp down to a hidden passage way, in the original it was merely a shortcut, in Frontiers they could’ve provided an opportunity to place like, a red ring or something there but they just…didn’t. There’s a story reason for this as Cyberspace pulls from Sonic’s memories, and because he’s zoomed through these stages before that’s why he can easily get in and out. It makes sense I guess but like, for one he hasn’t been to places like Sky Rail before so where did he get that memory from? Second, why does he only remember these 3 level aesthetics and why is 1 brand new if these are all from his memories? Third, there’s brand new completely original level design towards the final part of the game’s Cyberspace levels, and while I genuinely think these levels are actually pretty well designed and are fun to play, it not only undermines the whole “these levels are from his memory” thing, but it also pulls into question that the developers were more than capable of making fun, original level design but just…chose not to for whatever reason? I blame time constraints. Still while being unremarkable, Cyberspace still at least has some quirks that make it kinda fun. It was fun to recognize what level was being referenced in a sorta mindless “I MEMBER DAT!!!” kind of way, you can homing attack after an airboost and use stomp to completely reset your actions which adds a fun flow to 3D platforming sections, especially in the Unleashed acts. I honestly think the Cyberspace version of that one Dragon road act is more fun to play than the Unleashed version. Homing attack cancel (where you airboost after using a homing attack but before it hits the target) sends Sonic flying and it’s great fun to break these stages with, especially seeing as how Cyberspace barely has any invisible walls of any kind, though much like Unleashed if I can only get some semblance of enjoyment from these stages by flat out breaking through them, I think that’s a problem. Regardless, I don’t think these levels were godawful, I didn’t DREAD going to a Cyberspace level, it’s just something I kinda tolerate at the end of the day.
Another type of Cyberspace portal is Big’s fishing hole. You only find like one or 2 of these around the islands, but when you find it you can use the purple coins you collected to go fishing with Big and get rewards. The fishing minigame itself is extremely simple but I feel like that’s to the game’s benefit, especially considering how atrocious Big’s gameplay was in SA1. It’s just super relaxing to catch fish, get rewarded for doing so, and filling up your fishpedia as you go along. You even get some funny easter eggs in the form of fishing classic badniks like choppers, or fishing classic Sonic items like a spring or goal post. It’s also a fantastic way to get stuff you need, if you truly didn’t want to play any cyberspace level, or interact with any combat, you can just earn rewards like portal gears, vault keys and skill points just by fishing. One could argue the economy system isn’t well balanced, but idk, towards end game when I’ve already 100% each island anyway it was nice to DRAMATICALLY speed up getting my stats to max without insane amounts of grinding. I appreciate that the game wants you to play the game however you want to play it. Big’s alright in my book 😊
Graphically Sonic Frontiers looks excellent all around. I’ll always prefer more fantasy oriented fantastical colorful aesthetics compared to realistic looking stuff, but Frontiers still manages to make these environments look really top quality, there’s even a full day and night cycle. The textures are surprisingly very high detail for the most part, models are on point (haha get it cos he’s a hedgehog), the lighting and bloom are very well done, it runs as smooth as butter (I played on Series X and the game actually runs at a pretty high resolution in 60fps mode so there’s like no benefits to the 4K 30fps mode at all), I think this is easily the best looking Sonic game on a technical level…but it does have some problems. The most glaring is the pop in, it’s SUPER distracting, borderline immersion breaking. I genuinely tried to get used to it, I really did, but it was still an extremely distracting problem. This unfortunately isn’t a new problem for Sonic, the 3D games have all suffered from pop in in one form or another (yes even the precious Sonic Unleashed has pretty atrocious very noticeable pop in, even with objects that are close to Sonic), but in an open world setting it’s even more noticeable than ever before. I can excuse pop in to SOME degree, especially with a character that goes really really fast across a vast open landscape, but stuff will literally pop into view when you’re right in front of it, it can often be hard to tell where to enter an obstacle course because the entrance hasn’t blipped into view yet. It never got me killed or anything, and there’s no pop in whatsoever in the cyberspace levels, but it’s something I’m really hoping can be ironed out in a patch if they ever decide to address it at all. But man the music, oh my god the MUSIC dude, this is easily one of the best Sonic soundtracks ever put out, it’s top 5 for me no question. There’s so much variety and it’s all so GOOD. The absolutely beautiful open zone themes (Kronos and Rhea being my personal favorites), the absolutely bangin Cyberspace music, the screamo metal tracks of the Super Sonic fights that make these crazy encounters even more bonkers insane, it’s all fantastic. Tomoya Othani really outdid himself, no question.
There are some other issues I have as well, some of the minigames can be pretty poorly made (I beat the pinball one on my first try with one ball but I still didn’t like it), the Starfall event clutters your screen with a giant slot machine that makes it hard to see where you’re going, I encountered a few weird bugs and even managed to clip through the world once, and the final 2 islands are a bit of a disappointment (the 4th is just a story related tower climb filled island and the 5th is very similar to Kronos), but what we have here is an EXTREMELY solid foundation for the future of Sonic games. If they take what works here and expand upon it, make the open zones more interesting with more places to explore and secrets to uncover, make the levels original traditional Sonic levels, expand combat and skill tree, heck even throw more playable characters if you’re able to make them fun too, we could have a true gem on our hands. Sonic Frontiers is merely the stepping stone to something truly amazing, but if I had this much fun playing what’s essentially a first draft of an idea, I have a good feeling about what’s in store. I just hope and pray that Sonic Team doesn’t ditch this idea and start from scratch again like they usually do.
This is why Kishimoto >>>> Yuji Naka. I don’t make the rules.
Going into the initial reveal from both the May 2021 Sonic Central to the official reveal at the 2021 Game Awards, I was very cautious about this game after being previously burnt out by Sonic Forces and how hollow and uninspired that game was.
...sorry, did I say cautious? I meant outright skeptical.
"The same director and team who made a game as narrow and as linear as Forces are gonna now attempt an open world esc Sonic game? Yeah, sure, THIS looks like it's gonna go well."
But in the end, I still hoped that this game would be good. I always want to hope that, I love this character and this franchise, and I want him to succeed after all. I never really want to wish doom and gloom upon a game before it's already come out, but man did things already start out ROUGH. The initial IGN reveal during the summer of 2022 absolutely crushed me. The gameplay didn't look AWFUL per say, but it looked very aimless and boring, not helping things were the rough framerate and atrocious pop in (They basically revealed an early alpha or beta without even telling us that it was an earlier build), and my heart sunk. After all that waiting, THIS was what they were gonna reveal to us? THIS??? My hopes were rock bottom at that point, but as time passed something peculiar happened: the more they showed off the game, the better it looked. The more they showcased, the more my interest grew and before long, I was actually getting excited for this game. Well, maybe not excited, cautiously optimistic at best. Again, Forces REALLY burnt me out here, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. There was some stuff that bummed me out before release regardless, like the technical aspects and Cyberspace (I’ll discuss both of these later on don’t worry), but when my copy arrived a couple of days after launch, I legit couldn’t wait to play it. I tried my best to go in blind, as I often have a bad habit of spoiling myself on things I haven’t seen before release (it’s how I basically knew most of the major surprises Sonic Movie 2 had to offer before I saw the movie myself), and with how much they were playing up the mystery element with this game, and the fact that they got none other than Ian Flynn HIMSELF to write the story? I knew we were in for something special at the very least. So, did it end up being good in the end?
Oh man, you’d better believe it.
It’s not perfect of course, no game is, it’s not without its fair share of blemishes and annoyances, but man, this is bar none the most fun I’ve had with 3D Sonic in a long LONG while.
Starting off with the story, I think this may just be single handedly the best story in a Sonic game to DATE. Keep in mind that I’m someone who hasn’t really considered a majority of the game’s stories to be good at all (I honestly only really think SA2’s story was pretty decent and even that had issues), but the fact that Ian Flynn just casually made a story leaps and bounds over anything I’d ever seen from the games is amazing. I already knew the comics had it good for a while, specifically IDW, but I was so surprised at how invested and how engaged I was with what was happening the whole way through. If there’s any takeaway from Sonic Frontiers, it’s that it should be mandatory that Ian Flynn must write for every mainline Sonic game from now on. The characterization of every character in this game is top notch, Sonic himself is FINALLY back to being legitimately cool again, Tails’ messy characterization since Unleashed finally gets addressed, even Eggman gets some surprising development to how he views his relationship with Sage, the semi-main antagonist (Though admittedly most of that was relegated to the optional Egg memos). At first, I wasn’t a big fan of Sage with how cold and sterile her mannerisms were, and how she only spoke cryptically and how she would only talk about nothing but data and percentages and whatnot, I’ve seen this stuff before when it comes to mysterious villain characters. However, the more you watch her develop her relationships with Eggman and how she views Sonic and his relationships with his friends throughout the course of the game, the more and more compelling she becomes. The plot and general writing overall can be a bit too fan-servicey at times and rely a bit TOO much on referencing past games and events for no reason, but I’m fine with it honestly, and it generally feels like there’s a lot of effort placed into making Sonic’s universe feel more connected for future titles. Some of the references definitely put me off guard and got me excited for what’s to come. And man, the dialogue too is top notch, not every line hit of course, but on the whole, it was just so well written. I was a bit put off by Roger Craig Smith’s deeper toned Sonic, but I warmed up to it quite a bit, he sounds super natural and most of the time he doesn’t sound SUPER deep I don’t think. The rest of the cast put in solid performances as well. Overall if these kinds of stories are what we have to look forward to in the future, sign me up immediately, I loved this.
But that’s just the story of course, how does the gameplay of Sonic Frontiers hold up?
In a major change for the franchise, Sonic Frontiers opts to put Sonic in a vast open area and uh…basically just do whatever he wants. It’s not fully open world, which I think was smart, it’s more akin to like, Mario Odyssey or Bowser’s Fury on a MUCH larger scale to accommodate for Sonic’s high speed. A vast open area consisting of small linear platforming challenges in order to nab collectables. In Frontiers’ case, these collectables are the memory tokens you use to save your friends and progress the story. These aren’t the only important collectables of course, you also get portal gears, red and blue seeds of attack and defense respectively, purple coins around the overworld, but for all intents and purposes the memory tokens are the main thing you’re going to be collecting. Frontiers has an almost Zen like flow to its gameplay, leaping from one obstacle course in the sky or ground, getting launched from it and trying to land on another without stopping, it’s great stuff. But in general, the game is designed for you to take it at your own pace, exploring at your leisure, fighting whatever enemies you want to fight, tackling cyberspace stages, etc. The puzzles are rather simplistic but I wouldn’t call them braindead or anything. If anything, they’re a step above the typical “pick up stone and put it into corresponding hole” which makes up like, 99% of the puzzles of previous Sonic games, and there are some legitimately interesting puzzles in this game (like the laser light puzzle) the more you go on. Even the starting puzzles you mess around with (walking on light panels, hitting balls into hoops, etc) do get expanded upon on later islands, albeit not by much, again the puzzles in this game are REALLY not brain taxing in the slightest. They’re just simple non-time-wasting tasks to do, so the fact that I willingly go out and seek these puzzles speaks a lot for just how much simple fun they offer. It also helps that whenever you complete a puzzle you not only get a reward with either one of the seeds, but it also expands the map in a grid-like fashion, helping you better see where to go but also potentially uncovering extra tokens to find, cyberspace portals, and even more puzzles to even further expand the map, there’s always a sense of genuine discovery and a sense of “oh nice I almost missed that” to it. Completing these puzzles also opens up ancient rails to spawn which acts as a semi fast travel system around the island, and this is a genuine brilliant feature but I’ll get into why that is later on.
However, the puzzles have never really been the selling point to Sonic Frontiers, it’s the feeling of tearing through vast open landscapes at incredibly high speeds. It certainly helps that this is by far one of the best controlling 3D Sonics I have ever played. In terms of sheer ground movement, it’s EASILY better than anything I’ve experienced from this franchise. Even with the default settings active Sonic’s speed is good when boosting and his turning is ultra-sharp and precise, it feels absolutely incredible. I haven’t felt 3D Sonic movement this good since the Adventure games, but even the Adventure games were very finnicky and unreliable at incredibly high speeds, in Frontiers even when power boosting (which makes you go even faster) you can do ultra-tight donuts repeatedly, there’s nothing like this handling at all (and considering the main mechanic of Frontiers is running literal circles around enemies, it’d have to be smooth). This makes weaving in and out of enemies and obstacles a non-issue, platforming becomes incredibly second nature, and just the feeling of blasting away through open deserts or grassy fields feels so gratifying, it’s great stuff all around. The jump however feels less good. It doesn’t keep your boost speed at all which feels slightly unnatural and a bit limiting, but the weirdest thing about it is that it has this, what I can only describe as a Mario 64 esc turning syndrome, where you can’t just instantly turn your jump around on a dime but Sonic instead needs to swing alllllll the way around to turn the other direction, it makes things like, say, trying to reverse directions in mid air near impossible without resorting to airboosting (which is noticeably gimped from previous games until you max out your speed stat), and it makes situations like trying to nab collectables on the very edge of tiny platforms very awkward to do because of this. Between this and the fact that your jump doesn’t keep your speed, I wouldn’t be against the short hop returning as a way to keep your speed and to clear small gaps that you otherwise wouldn’t need a full jump to do so. But overall besides the jump his movement is top notch. His reaction to the terrain is a bit weird. There are times where he just sticks like glue to his surroundings and it can be kinda useful to have Sonic scale certain near vertical hills with ease (though it’s inconsistent and I wish you could just run up any wall you wanted, recreate that one part of the Sonic X intro where he just zips across mountains and whatnot with ease), makes traversal that much more free form, but if you wanna launch off a cliff and get some big air oftentimes he just sticks to the floor and careens straight down and it can be pretty annoying. There are quirks but overall his movement is great.
The platforming challenges floating above the world are a bit simple and odd in structure but they’re also incredibly bite sized and short so they never overstay their welcome. And again, it can be quite fun maintaining a sense of flow launching from one platforming challenge and landing on another without touching the ground. You even get Lost World style wall running and parkour (while not fully realized due to many instances of automation, I do think it’s actually way more fun to pull off than in Lost World). A part of me wished that these challenges got way more difficult and complex as they went on and that they were more naturally ingrained into the world, and while they get…slightly more complex I don’t feel it’s enough. It’s still fun on like, a simple base level but it never goes beyond that I feel. Some portions of these challenges are also in 2D and I genuinely wish there were more clear indications of where these transitions were going to occur because it’s really painful how much your flow is broken when you’re trying to go somewhere and you get sprung or dash pad boosted into a 2D section that you need to actively FIGHT to get out of, it’s incredibly annoying and could’ve been handled way better (Chaos Island is especially guilty of this). These obstacle courses and item collecting admittedly can get a bit repetitive after a while, there were a couple of points where I felt burnt out and needed to take a break, which is why I personally feel Frontiers is best enjoyed in sessions and not by marathoning the entire game. Still, equally there were plenty of times where I just could not put the controller down and always wanted to keep playing so I guess it depends. There is also proper momentum usage you can use to fling yourself around the island in funny ways, particularly with the rails. Remember the ancient rails I mentioned earlier that allows for sort of a fast travel system? Well you can also boost and jump off the rail while holding boost to keep all the speed you have to shoot off into the sky (amplified even further with the Power Boost), it’s very satisfying to pull off and can even be used to reach higher areas for extra collectables or puzzles (like the canyon walls in Ares Island for instance). You can also do this with geometry too but it’s inconsistent, Sonic has the glue tendency like I mentioned earlier but other times you trip over a tiny pebble and launch into the sky. I would find it frustrating but I overall don’t to be honest, it’s both fun and admittedly pretty funny.
Combat is very simple but overall satisfying. It’s not DMC or Bayonetta level depth or anywhere close (I don’t think Sonic combat has ever been), it’s very segmented and has some nice quirks like dodge canceling and the ability to actually juggle enemies, but taken on its own it gets pretty repetitive if not supplemented with interesting enemy design, and thankfully I think Frontiers manages great variety. Stuff like the Ninja variants actually, yknow, fight back against you so they’re engaging at the start, and the rest of the guardians have very unique ways of defeating them extremely quickly and it’s actually quite fun to discover. Wall running up Tower variants and quick cylooping the top to instantly destroy the other stacks, attacking and quick cylooping the feet of Spider instead of waiting for him to attack and cyloop each individual one, quick cylooping Sumo to instantly rattle off a ton of hits, it reminds me a lot of Sonic Heroes combat in a way, a relatively simple combat flow but the joy comes from optimizing the fastest way to take enemies down, and thankfully Frontiers offers a good amount of enemy variety so things don’t get too stale too quickly. The sound design is extremely gratifying as well, attacks, parries, and special moves hit with so much crunch and oomph that it’s always extremely fun to just wail on something on a surface level. My main gripes come from the parry, there’s no timing involved whatsoever so it ends up being so unsatisfying to use, you just hold the button down and instantly counter any attack thrown your way. It would’ve made more sense to RELEASE the button to initiate the parry if you still wanted to keep the “hold the button down to parry” system. The normal soldier enemies became tiring and something I actively ignored as the game progressed as I didn’t get much joy taking these variants down at all. I also don’t really appreciate enemies that yoink camera control away from the player every time you pass by them (I’m looking at you, you homing attack bubble spawning jerk). Combat also kinda falls flat in terms of moves completely replacing actions you would normally do in the overworld. For example, if you wanted to airboost to get extra distance across a platform and immediately homing attack an enemy, OOPS, you’ll use the homing shot instead. Or say, if you wanted to airboost and jump or stomp to reposition, OOPS, you’ll cross slash or loop kick instead, idk why these actions couldn’t have just been simple button combinations instead of one button pressed after the other. I’m also extremely disappointed in the skill tree, it’s very small and it doesn’t take a long time to unlock everything at all. (shoot once you get the trick system upgrade you can pretty much max out the entire thing by the second island, it’s super deflating). It was one worry I had going in when I saw the skill tree and unfortunately, my fear turned out to be true.
The major boss encounters on each island are easily the best boss fights I have ever experienced in any Sonic game ever and I’m not even exaggerating. Yeah yeah, they’re more spectacle than substance but like…that’s literally how it’s been in every Super Sonic final boss, a gimmicky oftentimes terrible minigame esc control scheme that’s supposed to make you feel powerful but often never does. I genuinely can’t think of a single one I’ve played that left me satisfied or left me feeling anything other than pure apathy. With these boss fights, the main combat mechanics you use in the main game are carried over, just given a Super Sonic boost, and the sheer spectacle and over the top action are increased to degrees so monumentally high that I was absolutely blown away when I first experienced them. I’m gonna be honest, I have no clue how they’re ever gonna top the first 3 Titan fights in the future, they were just that amazing. Unfortunately, the final 2 boss fights were pretty lame, the final titan fight was just a reskinned Giganto but with worse spectacle and a confusing unintuitive strategy to fight him, and while I won’t spoil the true final boss it’s even MORE underwhelming than the final titan, especially compared to all the insane fights we’ve took part in throughout the course of the game.
Finally, and rather unceremoniously, we come to Cyberspace. Sonic Team’s answer to traditional Sonic levels. These are where you use portal gears on and where you primarily get vault keys from. This is easily the weakest area of the game, for multiple reasons. The first being control, Sonic’s handling in Cyberspace is so much worse than the Open Zone controls it’s not even funny. His steering is extremely stiff, he’s even slower than before ESPECIALLY in 2D, his momentum-killing awkward turning jump is still a problem, he just doesn’t feel good. I wouldn’t say it’s as bad as like, Forces, because his acceleration isn’t jank and the overall handling is better, but it’s still nowhere near as good as Generations or Colors. What’s even worse are the levels themselves. For one, there’s only 4 level aesthetics for Cyberspace: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary, and the new City theme (which I am hereby dubbing either “Cyber City”, or the “Information Superhighway” and nobody can tell me otherwise). Visually they look fine enough, but I think I can attest for many when I say that I am tired, absolutely EXHAUSTED of seeing Green Hill, Chemical Plant, and even Sky Sanctuary again. Did they just not learn anything from Forces and didn’t hear about the thousands of people complaining about them reusing Green Hill for the umpteenth time? The cyberspace aesthetics are really neat though, with how neon trails of light often zoom across the terrain, the terrain itself is broken and distorted and endlessly warping in the distance like a corrupt program. I think it hits the hardest with the Cyber City, I really love this stage aesthetic. The sprawling twisting highways with supposed traffic warping at incredible speeds up and down and all around, Skyscrapers turned upside down and sideways, abandoned cars as obstacles, tanks and helicopters (apparently from GUN) as enemies, and stop signs, road signs and lights displayed in a glitchy unnatural state throughout these twisting turning highways, I really enjoy this. The level design itself however is ripped unapologetically from other games in the franchise, mainly Sonic Generations, Unleashed, and even Adventure 2. Idk what makes the game think I would want to play through a Generations level but chopped up into bits and pieces and with worse controls but bold move I suppose. Some level design set pieces from these different games are also there but ring hollow, like you have the rocket section in Metal Harbor but without the impending timer ticking down or a rocket of any kind because it’s draped in the chemical plant skin, or the bridge in Gens Modern Green Hill where you can stomp down to a hidden passage way, in the original it was merely a shortcut, in Frontiers they could’ve provided an opportunity to place like, a red ring or something there but they just…didn’t. There’s a story reason for this as Cyberspace pulls from Sonic’s memories, and because he’s zoomed through these stages before that’s why he can easily get in and out. It makes sense I guess but like, for one he hasn’t been to places like Sky Rail before so where did he get that memory from? Second, why does he only remember these 3 level aesthetics and why is 1 brand new if these are all from his memories? Third, there’s brand new completely original level design towards the final part of the game’s Cyberspace levels, and while I genuinely think these levels are actually pretty well designed and are fun to play, it not only undermines the whole “these levels are from his memory” thing, but it also pulls into question that the developers were more than capable of making fun, original level design but just…chose not to for whatever reason? I blame time constraints. Still while being unremarkable, Cyberspace still at least has some quirks that make it kinda fun. It was fun to recognize what level was being referenced in a sorta mindless “I MEMBER DAT!!!” kind of way, you can homing attack after an airboost and use stomp to completely reset your actions which adds a fun flow to 3D platforming sections, especially in the Unleashed acts. I honestly think the Cyberspace version of that one Dragon road act is more fun to play than the Unleashed version. Homing attack cancel (where you airboost after using a homing attack but before it hits the target) sends Sonic flying and it’s great fun to break these stages with, especially seeing as how Cyberspace barely has any invisible walls of any kind, though much like Unleashed if I can only get some semblance of enjoyment from these stages by flat out breaking through them, I think that’s a problem. Regardless, I don’t think these levels were godawful, I didn’t DREAD going to a Cyberspace level, it’s just something I kinda tolerate at the end of the day.
Another type of Cyberspace portal is Big’s fishing hole. You only find like one or 2 of these around the islands, but when you find it you can use the purple coins you collected to go fishing with Big and get rewards. The fishing minigame itself is extremely simple but I feel like that’s to the game’s benefit, especially considering how atrocious Big’s gameplay was in SA1. It’s just super relaxing to catch fish, get rewarded for doing so, and filling up your fishpedia as you go along. You even get some funny easter eggs in the form of fishing classic badniks like choppers, or fishing classic Sonic items like a spring or goal post. It’s also a fantastic way to get stuff you need, if you truly didn’t want to play any cyberspace level, or interact with any combat, you can just earn rewards like portal gears, vault keys and skill points just by fishing. One could argue the economy system isn’t well balanced, but idk, towards end game when I’ve already 100% each island anyway it was nice to DRAMATICALLY speed up getting my stats to max without insane amounts of grinding. I appreciate that the game wants you to play the game however you want to play it. Big’s alright in my book 😊
Graphically Sonic Frontiers looks excellent all around. I’ll always prefer more fantasy oriented fantastical colorful aesthetics compared to realistic looking stuff, but Frontiers still manages to make these environments look really top quality, there’s even a full day and night cycle. The textures are surprisingly very high detail for the most part, models are on point (haha get it cos he’s a hedgehog), the lighting and bloom are very well done, it runs as smooth as butter (I played on Series X and the game actually runs at a pretty high resolution in 60fps mode so there’s like no benefits to the 4K 30fps mode at all), I think this is easily the best looking Sonic game on a technical level…but it does have some problems. The most glaring is the pop in, it’s SUPER distracting, borderline immersion breaking. I genuinely tried to get used to it, I really did, but it was still an extremely distracting problem. This unfortunately isn’t a new problem for Sonic, the 3D games have all suffered from pop in in one form or another (yes even the precious Sonic Unleashed has pretty atrocious very noticeable pop in, even with objects that are close to Sonic), but in an open world setting it’s even more noticeable than ever before. I can excuse pop in to SOME degree, especially with a character that goes really really fast across a vast open landscape, but stuff will literally pop into view when you’re right in front of it, it can often be hard to tell where to enter an obstacle course because the entrance hasn’t blipped into view yet. It never got me killed or anything, and there’s no pop in whatsoever in the cyberspace levels, but it’s something I’m really hoping can be ironed out in a patch if they ever decide to address it at all. But man the music, oh my god the MUSIC dude, this is easily one of the best Sonic soundtracks ever put out, it’s top 5 for me no question. There’s so much variety and it’s all so GOOD. The absolutely beautiful open zone themes (Kronos and Rhea being my personal favorites), the absolutely bangin Cyberspace music, the screamo metal tracks of the Super Sonic fights that make these crazy encounters even more bonkers insane, it’s all fantastic. Tomoya Othani really outdid himself, no question.
There are some other issues I have as well, some of the minigames can be pretty poorly made (I beat the pinball one on my first try with one ball but I still didn’t like it), the Starfall event clutters your screen with a giant slot machine that makes it hard to see where you’re going, I encountered a few weird bugs and even managed to clip through the world once, and the final 2 islands are a bit of a disappointment (the 4th is just a story related tower climb filled island and the 5th is very similar to Kronos), but what we have here is an EXTREMELY solid foundation for the future of Sonic games. If they take what works here and expand upon it, make the open zones more interesting with more places to explore and secrets to uncover, make the levels original traditional Sonic levels, expand combat and skill tree, heck even throw more playable characters if you’re able to make them fun too, we could have a true gem on our hands. Sonic Frontiers is merely the stepping stone to something truly amazing, but if I had this much fun playing what’s essentially a first draft of an idea, I have a good feeling about what’s in store. I just hope and pray that Sonic Team doesn’t ditch this idea and start from scratch again like they usually do.
This is why Kishimoto >>>> Yuji Naka. I don’t make the rules.
2011
This game is by far my favorite game of all time. There's just so much that I love about it - the fantastic level design, the tight controls, the incredibly vibrant visuals, the amazing music, etc. Modern and Classic Sonic are so much fun to play, the levels are so much fun to go through, the bosses are all incredibly fun (with a lone exception), the entire game oozes charm and is a great love letter to the entire history of the series, genuinely this game is something I can go back to over and over again and never get tired of it. I hope one day Sonic Team puts together an original game that has as much thought and love put into it as this game did.
2019
Turns out if you remake a bad game it still ends up being a bad game. What a surprise.
The biggest issue I have with this remake is that it tries to appeal to 2 different demographics at once: those who are a fan of traditional Adventure gameplay, and those who are a fan of the original Sonic 06. P06 tries to blend the "best of both worlds" together and I just don't think it works out well. More hardcore fans of the base game are gonna be put off by the control and mechanical changes, and the people who are more geared towards traditional Sonic Adventure are put off by the sluggishness everything still has compared towards the original Adventure games. It ends up appealing to not really either side in that regard, and for me personally """fixing""" 06's controls doesn’t really solve the plethora of issues I take with the original game. Like, Sonic actually having weight to his movement, actually reacting to terrain and being able to perform skips via spindash jumping again make this better than base 06 by default don't get me wrong, on top of some nice quality of life improvements like actually having air control in Mach Speed sections, but the movement is still too slow and limited for me to actually get invested. The spindash still sucks, the airdash still REALLY sucks, it just doesn't feel satisfying to play at all. Granted this game does give you the option to swap to a more adventure-esc spindash and airdash which I feel helps, but not by much.
My main issue is that at the end of the day this game is still trying to be somewhat faithful to base 06, whether it be mechanically or level design wise, and well...to say I'm not exactly the biggest fan of 06's level design and mechanics would be putting it lightly. Combat is still braindead and repetitive, the huge amount of automation is still present everywhere, these aren't ideas that are "really good actually" that would've been "fixed if the game wasn’t rushed!" - they're just bad ideas. The remake as a whole is undeniably impressive with the amount of effort that's been put into it, but in terms of gameplay I've been extremely unimpressed with what I managed to experience.
The biggest issue I have with this remake is that it tries to appeal to 2 different demographics at once: those who are a fan of traditional Adventure gameplay, and those who are a fan of the original Sonic 06. P06 tries to blend the "best of both worlds" together and I just don't think it works out well. More hardcore fans of the base game are gonna be put off by the control and mechanical changes, and the people who are more geared towards traditional Sonic Adventure are put off by the sluggishness everything still has compared towards the original Adventure games. It ends up appealing to not really either side in that regard, and for me personally """fixing""" 06's controls doesn’t really solve the plethora of issues I take with the original game. Like, Sonic actually having weight to his movement, actually reacting to terrain and being able to perform skips via spindash jumping again make this better than base 06 by default don't get me wrong, on top of some nice quality of life improvements like actually having air control in Mach Speed sections, but the movement is still too slow and limited for me to actually get invested. The spindash still sucks, the airdash still REALLY sucks, it just doesn't feel satisfying to play at all. Granted this game does give you the option to swap to a more adventure-esc spindash and airdash which I feel helps, but not by much.
My main issue is that at the end of the day this game is still trying to be somewhat faithful to base 06, whether it be mechanically or level design wise, and well...to say I'm not exactly the biggest fan of 06's level design and mechanics would be putting it lightly. Combat is still braindead and repetitive, the huge amount of automation is still present everywhere, these aren't ideas that are "really good actually" that would've been "fixed if the game wasn’t rushed!" - they're just bad ideas. The remake as a whole is undeniably impressive with the amount of effort that's been put into it, but in terms of gameplay I've been extremely unimpressed with what I managed to experience.
2010
I'll always have a soft spot for Sonic Colors to be honest. I still think the movement and controls are phenomenal and the overall handling is rock solid whether in 2D or 3D, the moveset Sonic has is fun to use (the stomp and airdash in particular being god tier and are an absolute blast), the wisps offer good variety in power ups with only a few being lame or bad to control, and to say nothing of the gorgeous visuals, creative stage themes, and fantastic soundtrack. Some levels can end rather abruptly and the game likes to recycle boss fights which is a shame but I always have a good time when coming back to this game
1998
This review contains spoilers
bababooey
2003
It is said in an ancient proverb that real gamers don't skip DMC2, but to be honest I wouldn't hold it against you if you did.
2011
The most “play it safe” 3D Mario I think I’ve ever seen in my life. Entirely unoriginal, slow, mundane, and now with an additional helping of depth perception issues!!!