Sonic Frontiers is so so close to being good and has the potential to be great.
So many elements just work. The anime tone makes Sonic and his friends feel grounded despite the absurd events. The soundtrack is full of great ambient music that provide just the right vibes for exploring the world. The boss fights are metal as fuck (not enough of these btw). And the structured levels throughout the game are fun classic Sonic stages.
The open world, where most of the player's time is spent, is just such an absolute mishmash of concepts. It feels unfinished. There's nothing really of value to do and figuring out how to get somewhere (especially on the map full of islands) can be a huge pain. The rail sections in the world often force sonic in a 2D plane, meaning that the moment you start a rail section, you're forced to see it through fully until the end in order to return to 3D plane exploration...Even if you realize mid-rail that you're going the wrong way.
In order to reveal sections of the map, Sonic Frontiers has a ton of "challenge" levels throughout as well. These are the meat of the content in the open world. And they're basically all braindead puzzles. I get that Sonic is for children but a lot of these felt borderline insulting. "draw 3 circles" type shit. The combat is also really simplistic and never felt great because mashing buttons usually led to a win.
I think the overall structure of Sonic Frontiers can work well. Sonic Team just need to fill it with more compelling things to do.
obtained the platinum trophy
So many elements just work. The anime tone makes Sonic and his friends feel grounded despite the absurd events. The soundtrack is full of great ambient music that provide just the right vibes for exploring the world. The boss fights are metal as fuck (not enough of these btw). And the structured levels throughout the game are fun classic Sonic stages.
The open world, where most of the player's time is spent, is just such an absolute mishmash of concepts. It feels unfinished. There's nothing really of value to do and figuring out how to get somewhere (especially on the map full of islands) can be a huge pain. The rail sections in the world often force sonic in a 2D plane, meaning that the moment you start a rail section, you're forced to see it through fully until the end in order to return to 3D plane exploration...Even if you realize mid-rail that you're going the wrong way.
In order to reveal sections of the map, Sonic Frontiers has a ton of "challenge" levels throughout as well. These are the meat of the content in the open world. And they're basically all braindead puzzles. I get that Sonic is for children but a lot of these felt borderline insulting. "draw 3 circles" type shit. The combat is also really simplistic and never felt great because mashing buttons usually led to a win.
I think the overall structure of Sonic Frontiers can work well. Sonic Team just need to fill it with more compelling things to do.
obtained the platinum trophy