So I finally finished this game yesterday to full completion. I have completed like 3 or 4 games total to Platinum Completion on PS4 so the fact that i've even bothered to go out of my way to play for the Platinum goes to show how much I enjoyed this game.

===The first half of this review will be STORY SPOILER FREE. There will be another warning before I review the story where I will mention spoilers.===

Summary: This game knows it wasn't made for everyone, and that's just perfect.

I went in to this game with a contempt for Sonic the Hedgehog. I'll be fully honest and say I purchased this while drunk - in the months prior to buying this i'd done nothing but slag it off, saying it looked shit and it was going to be shit, and it was going to be a standard boost formula affair with nothing fun. I have played so many Sonic games over the past two decades and the last one I -actually- liked in full was Sonic Adventure 2 (Sonic Mania also, but that one hardly counts as it was made by a team that wasn't Sonic Team so i'm not giving them the W for that). I honestly was completely convinced that Sonic Team was completely inept and would never make a good Sonic game ever again. I mean, c'mon. Team Sonic Racing??? Why? Why did we need this?

Sonic Team just didn't have a clue who they were making games for, why they were even making them, what they even wanted Sonic to be. SO many years, I spent talking about Sonic Adventure 3, wishing it into existence and the return of the Holy Grail Momentum Gameplay. PEAK SONIC. More edgy and dark slightly out of place storytelling. It always felt like a path Sonic was meant to go down and yet was taken off the course early because Sega decided to rush out Sonic 06 before it was close to finished (that and Sonic Team reduced his speed to a crawl). Imagine my surprise a few hours into this game when I was starting to realise that I actually didn't want Sonic Adventure 3 anymore.

I'll be honest, I booted up this game ready and equipped to hate it - I was telling my friends that it was already mid before i'd even started. I didn't want to fall victim to the infamous Sonic cycle once again. The first level leaves alot to be desired - you start the game and you're thrust immediately into a Cyberspace stage, with turns that don't even feel like they fit the controls for the game, and you go "Oh wow, here we go. Another boost to win cringe game." The level is basically just a straight run with a few jumps, so the first impression is mediocre. Then you get into the open zone, and WOW.

First of all, that voice acting is the best Sonic has ever had. Jason Griffith has sounded goofy since he was first cast, and now that he is using a deeper register - ignore the memes, it sounds fantastic. All of the characters present have a deeper and more serious tone this time around and it just works so well.

Once you start playing the game, you'll probably think the game world looks a little bleak and that Sonic controls a little weird (maybe you won't, reviewers online have had mixed opinions on this, perhaps it's personal preference). But that's okay, because you can tweak -almost- everything about the way Sonic controls in this game (in the open zone at least) and it is absolutely fantastic. I tweaked my controls to be more reminiscent of the Adventure era, (pro tip: lower the start speed greatly and slightly reduce the acceleration. Makes platforming alot easier and precise, and even though you start running at a crawl it doesn't matter because the boost button is always available to kick you up to max speed at an instant when you need to get going. Regardless of how you prefer your settings you'll spend a little while at the start configuring it, which I suppose to some could be a nitpick, but I personally would rather spend the extra time getting an experience that I prefer than getting a control scheme out the box that I dislike. I'm sure you'll find your preferred way of controlling Sonic easily.

Now, without spoiling the progression of the game etc. I will simply do my best to describe how gameplay -feels- in this game. For reference, i'm autistic and when I was a child, me and one of my childhood best friends used to run around in our gardens pretending to be Sonic characters and fighting pretend enemies in ways that had yet to be visualised in an actual Sonic game, imagining what it'd be like if Sonic was a shonen anime protag essentially. I used to have dreams at night imagining what an open world freeroam Sonic game could feel like and wake up dissapointed in the morning when I realised it wasn't actually a game I owned.

From about an hour into playing this game I realised that Sonic Frontiers is the game that I had always dreamed of playing, and from the footage I watched from pre-release, I wasn't expecting it to be at all. The game looked boring and uninspired, the visuals seemed to be a little bleak, and the music may as well have not been there at all. What doesn't come across in watching a video, however, is that this game feels -SO- much better to play than the sum of its parts should equate to.

Sonic controls fluidly and lightning fast thanks to the usual boost formula affair, but this time around his turning is alot tighter and Sega realised that running into walls doesn't make you feel fast. Open zone is how Sonic was ALWAYS meant to be experienced, I think, and we didn't even know it because the hub worlds in Sonic Adventure 1 were so fucking boring. Here, Sonic is zipping across vast plains of running space at light speed akin to what you'd see in Sonic X or the kids shows, zipping from rail to rail, to platform to platform, and it just feels perfect.

Another new addition to this game is the combat - forget Sonic Unleashed, a literally mid game because the amazing boost levels are offset by the garbage fighting mechanics that are slow and tedious - Sonic here has a brand new hack and slash style combo meter and moves, though simplified. As someone who has always thought hack and slash games are boring, since the whole attraction is building combos and for that to feel rewarding, things need to have a decent amount of health to survive a few hits - it's refreshing as hell to see it done perfectly well (for me) in this game. The combos are simple but so visually satisfying and just have great feedback on the controller, you really feel like some sort of Shonen version of Sonic, it's really amazing.

Below I will continue with some spoilers to the gameplay and story, but I will give my final verdict here for those who don't want to see that. The game is missing ALOT of visual polish. Sometimes, things render in in the distance out of thin air with rather obvious pop in, textures load in slowly and appear blurry upon leaving most levels, and sometimes the lighting will bug out and be glitchy when you run into a new area. There is more than just this, at times the game really looks low res as hell during cutscenes and some of the characters aren't really super well animated. That is the only thing taking this game down from a 10 to a 9 - the game does not -suffer- because of these - it is still just as fun and they are never an outright issue, but it isn't a perfect experience. Other things affect my decision, such as the lack of things that, ironically are in the Sonic games where I won't touch them, but in the game I actually want them, they're absent - such as a boss rush mode, time trials for cyberspace levels, Newgame+, or even Super Sonic in the open world after 100% on your file, they're not here, puzzlingly. The game is still a fantastic experience it just gives you less reason to continue fucking around on it, which is a shame. Hopefully they will add these with DLC and it'll bump it to a deserved 10/10. If reading my review at any point made you think "Oh wow, thats relatable, sounds like me", then this game is for you - if not, then it probably isn't. And I don't think thats a bad thing - I think Sonic team knows that the fanbase is hugely made up of people like me who love this game for exactly what it is, and that's okay.

===SPOILER WARNING===

Okay, so the rest of these thoughts will be mild-heavy spoilers as I want to talk about specific instances of gameplay.

I hear -so- much ragging online about the cyberspace levels, saying they control jank and they're boring, saying they're too easy. This is very bizarre (probably skill issue tbh) and I spent most of my time wondering if I played the same game - the ONLY level I thought this was the first one, as it doesn't seem to be built for this control scheme - but everything else just works seemlessly. The controls in cyberspace stages are different to the open zone and not affected by your preference settings, but that's so you don't mess with time rankings etc. In my opinion, they control exactly how I want them to, which is reminiscent of the Sonic Rush formula style of boost gameplay in 2D sections, and in 3D sections, the game controls like a lovechild of Sonic Adventure 2's level skipping antics mixed with Sonic Generations if you could actually turn with the joystick. It feels fantastic and these levels aren't a lowpoint at all, the soundtrack is jamming if you're in to drum and bass / edm (no rock tracks here), and there's a good handful of them that are somewhat challenging to S rank and will give you a good few attempts getting the path down, but not so long that it feels ridiculously unfair.

There are so many good cyberspace stages here - there's a Sonic R styled level where you press the boost button and have tank controls, which while intentionally controlling horribly is a one time short throwback (the level lasts like what, 2 minutes max or something?) which was amazing to see and amusing. The rest of them control amazingly well and there are a mixture of old level layouts such as Green Forest, Metal Harbour and Sky Rail, as well as completely new layouts and parts of stages which are throwbacks to other level layouts as well. Cyberspace levels only use one of four tilesets - Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone, Sky Sanctuary, and a new digital highway sort of theme. I know what you're probably thinking, it's an eyeroll callback to the old games, but it isn't intrusive at all here like it has been in the past. Think of these levels as if they were enjoyable remixes of past Sonic levels - despite sharing the same tilesets they feel nothing alike and every level feels largely unique because of their layouts. I had a blast 100% completing these stages, even if you get nothing for doing so.

The open zone areas that you traverse between these cyberspace stages are expansive and littered with miniboss giants, most of which are very entertaining to fight (with a few exceptions) and give you ample opportunity to rail on them with your combos between dodging / platforming segments. Its a really nice mixture and I hope it stays in future installments. Throughout the open zones, you'll complete platforming segments to find collectables which will progress the story, defeat mini-bosses to collect gears which unlock cyberspace stages, which give vault keys to unlock chaos emeralds which are also behind platforming segments. It's a really fun gameplay loop. During the open zone, Sonic will encounter the titan (final boss) of each one, which during a cutscene will kick the shit out of him and make it personal - which is your drive to collect the seven emeralds in each zone so you can turn the tables. This is an incredibly cool way to do boss battles in this game and I love it - the mini bosses offer you some challenge through the platforming and dodging, the main bosses however are less strategy than they are spectacle - the most badass songs from any Sonic OST start belting out, edgy, motivating metal screamo bangers sung by Kellin Quinn of Sleeping with Sirens fame, whilst you just absolutely whale on these collossal bosses with Super Sonic's invincibility - the only catch is that whilst you can't be damaged, you can run out of rings (honestly this is a non issue if you max your ring count before the fight, once I realised you could do that I never died again). Each main boss fight is filled with cutaways to quicktime button press segments between the action which give epic scenes of Sonic just flinging these titans into walls etc, it's really awesome to see. Honestly, just think Metal Gear Rising on Super Saiyan steroids.

As for the characters, if you were hoping for an extended cast this game doesn't provide it - the only characters that show up are Amy, Knuckles and Tails, in that order. However, this isn't to the games detrement and the game focuses on giving them plenty of screentime and character development, which is a brilliant change. Amy is actually likable here and not annoying, almost seems like she is supposed to be Sonic's love interest now? Knuckles seems to have more of a brotherly rivalry with Sonic, and Tails is finally growing up and wants to stand more on his own. Eggman and his artificial intelligence turned daughter, SAGE also makes an appearance, and the writing is easily the best of any sonic game. The story is mature, and a big part of what keeps you going through a few of the lower points of the game (some of the parts of the third island got a little frustrating for me, as the game doesn't do a very good job of letting you know you're meant to use the birds to traverse to the other islands... lots of wasted time there). The story leans heavily into mystery and wanting to know what happened to this ancient civilisation of Koko, which are actually the memories of a long gone race of... Chaos! You know, the watery blobby monster in Sonic Adventure 1? We actually get some lore as to why he even exists - he is the last remaining of them, it seems, since he was trapped inside the Master Emerald. Why, I have no idea, but I presume it will be mentioned later on as the game does end on a cliffhanger and i'm excited to see it progress.

As I said earlier, I would easily recommend this as a must play for those who are fans of Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic 06, or Shadow the Hedgehog, as the game very much follows a similiar vein in terms of tone for the story, though is handled in a far more mature and believable manner - these characters feel as if they are MEANT to be in this world. Not to mention, Sonic's usual cringey one liners are kept to a minimum here and when they occur, are nowhere near as atrocious as "Robuttnik".

9/10, better than Elden Ring, GOTY.