Alright let’s do this one more time.

Sonic Frontiers is a game that I have played and spoken about as a total of 3 times on here as of now, 4 if you count the preview I played in London, and it’s a game that I have no strong opinions on one way or the other. I don’t really hate Sonic Frontiers, but I am not really a fan of it either? It’s a very weird game that for some reason is called the pinnacle of Sonic even at release. It baffles me, I won’t judge but I’m confused at this games reception, even more so than now with this latest updates. I was originally planning on doing a re-review of the entire game alongside talking about the new updates, but I feel there’s first of all no need, second I think it could make a good video and lastly, I don’t have the energy to re review a game that I don’t have much of a stance on. Anyway, why am I talking about these updates?

Sonic Frontiers is the first sonic game to feature free content updates, 3 major updates to be exact, adding new features, modes, options and for the last update, an entire new story. Even as someone who didn’t really care about Frontiers, this intrigued me, I don’t know if i thought if it would fix the game but at least I could maybe, maybe see what all the hype was about. The answer is more complicated then I could imagine, but unfortunately, I’m leaning towards a negative side. This is gonna be a long, negative ass review of Frontiers after launch, I’m tired.

Update 1: Sights, Sound, and Speedymcfly!!!

Update 1 is what Is the update in my opinion, that put stuff that was probably supposed to be in the game at launch into it, and it does it job, fine. This right here is a fine update. The features in this update are quite cool but needed a bit more time in the oven, something we will see later on especially. First, there’s a new jukebox mode that contains songs from across the series, I like this, as someone who doesn’t really care about Frontiers music, it’s nice to get songs that I actually like and can listen to while running around at the literal speed of sound, getting them is fun as you need to think out of the box to get some of the better song choices, usually vocal songs, while others are easy to find. You also have a photo mode, which isn’t very good in my opinion, it’s feels so limited since you can’t even use it in cyberspace, it only has a limited pool of filters and, nothing else. No pose’s, stickers, other unique filters or anything else, it’s just serviceable.

The other two modes are the ones that add, like, actual replay value to Frontiers. In the base game, there was nothing of the sort other than Arcade Mode where you can replay Cyberspace, which was nice if you wanted a higher rank but in terms of going back to the game, that was it. There was nothing to really go back on and improve on, there was no ranking system in combat, no super sonic to mess with, no post game side objectives or anything. So adding these where a welcome addition, it’s fine. Again I have to stress this is a fine update, but it’s nothing that really boosted my enjoyment on the game as much as I wanted it, we got a boss rush and egg shuttle which is nice. Sorry for the short and scattershot thoughts but there’s not really much to say on this update, it adds more meat to Frontiers which is a good thing but other than that, nothing really outstanding or that great honestly.

(There’s also extreme mode which I haven’t unlocked but from I heard it’s quite bad despite the few neat additions it adds)

Update 2: Sonic’s birthday bash (He died when he turned 15! F in the chat 😔)

Update 2 was the update that I kinda brushed over, something that I didn’t really know what to expect, and it surprised me and how good it was, there’s even some moments of where I thought, okay, I kinda get it now. Not to the point where I would call it my favourite sonic game, but instead of me not really coming back to it unless I get the PC Version and mod it, it’s a game that I could come back to if I’m feeling up for it.

Update 2 shakes up a lot of things, the birthday stuff is quite superfluous, it’s nothing then a cosmetic thing which I don’t really care about. But everything in this update doesn’t miss, I’m serious, nearly aspect while could have done with some work, enhances the game. First, a very small but incredibly helpful thing is that you can keep your speed while jumping, this is such a small but wonderful fix as it keeps the flow of the game instead being kinda awkward. What this update adds are new action chain challenges, and these are really great, essentially you need to go around the map collecting chains, which you can do my homing attacking on stuff, rail grinding etc, all while collecting orbs to multiple your score. This is fun because it’s using Frontiers whack ass world design to its benefit whole providing a fun challenge, it’s like, actual side content. And what you get for the reward is so great, the spin dash. Around this time Khisimoto was taking in feedback from the community, and for better or worse, this is one of the things added. The Spin dash here isn’t really a Spin dash per say more like a Spin Boost, but as someone who enjoyed using the drop dash, this is sorta a game changer to Frontiers movement and how I’d approach it.

There’s also some fun new challenging Koco stuff that increase your boost meter and a new game plus mode, while it sadly doesn’t increase the difficulty, but I wouldn’t say it’s knock on adding this since most new game plus games doesn’t even do this, but it’s something that could have made it gone the extra mile. So on the whole, update 2 boosts my enjoyment of Frontiers considerable, let’s hope update 3 can stick the landing.

Update 3: The Final Animal Crossing Horizon

What the hell

Update 3, kinda broke me, it’s everything that i love and hate about Frontiers combined into a mess. A mess that I can’t for the life of me still understand the reception of. Update 3 was the big one, the first time multiple playable character were in a 3D Sonic game since Sonic Forces! But more seriously since 06 and maybe even Black Knight if you’re insane like me. This a big deal, along with promising to fix Frontiers polarising ending.

See, I didn’t mention this in my review due to being spoiler free, but Frontiers final boss is both baffling and underwhelming, providing no satisfying challenge either being easy with a QTE, or just pure nightmare fuel with the shooter thing, along with the big fucking purple moon named THE END spouting complete and utter nonsense that was not built up in a satisfying and compelling way in a story that’s too subtle. The final horizon aims to fix this ending both narratively and mechanically. I say aim because they completely missed the fucking target.

Good lord, this was both innanely frustrating, boring and depressing. I can imagine due to Kishimoto trying to listen to all the feedback he’s gotten on Twitter, he tried his damn best to please everyone in such a limited time lot of 2 months and has only divided people on this far even further on this game.

How this works and is integrated into the game feels quite disconnected, instead of outright replacing it, it’s a new alternate timeline/“What if” where Sonic uses his cyber corruption to defeat the End, all while his amigos collect the Chaos Emeralds.

In terms of story, uh this was quite bad! There’s a lot of great moments, mostly in the final boss and ending but everything else is just what I hate about Frontiers plot, it’s so boring! Like, the dialogue has had a complete nose dive in quality in my opinion. A lot of the moment to moment dialogue just doesn’t feel natural, the voice acting is just not there for most of the characters except for Roger, the rest of the characters sound bored out of their mind. The dialogue is the worse of Ian Flynn in my opinion, while I like his work in some cases, here I couldn’t vibe with it. There’s a ton of references that don’t gel with the general tone and atmosphere at hand along with making a lot of unnecessary retcons to the game and lore, some are good, most of them… Yikes. They reiterate the character arcs in the game and retcon a ton of things. So now Big is a hallucination of Sonic (Even though he showed up in the Prologue) and Sonic uses the power of cyberspace to create all the whack ass shit in the Starfall Islands, what now? Can Cyberspace pretend to be a bar of soap and give them all the slip? It’s just silly. But the revised slow story is the least of my problems.

Okay, let’s talk about what I like. Cyberspace is pretty cool! It still sorta reuses stages but it’s fun! The final boss while not without its flaws, it’s good! Has a ton of hype moments as well especially with that new shiny form we get a split second of. Very nice! What’s not nice however is the new actual form we play is just Super Sonic, but with blue eyes! Very not nice! The new songs are pretty good! And uh… I like how the trial areas look!

I’m gonna be honest guys, this update made be tired of a lot things both in the update and just on the whole, the only thing keeping me sane was booting up a couple rounds of F-Zero 99, because my god. This broke me.

The two fatal flaws of the update are first, the new characters. They are bad! The issue with them is that at their core they’re fine, but they just have these little quirks that annoy you.

-Amy is arguably the best character here, her moveset is completely comprised of cards, not her actually weapon she uses. It’s completely silly given how she’s smacking people with cards, riding a motorcycle with cards and gliding with cards and the Hammer gets, is a parry. I don’t know who to blame for this, but this feels like such a baffling decision. Despite this, I feel Amy is semi fun to play as, which can be said for all the characters, she’s the only one that doesn’t adversely have anything wrong with her
-What did they do to my boy Knuckles. Knuckles is one of my favourite sonic characters both to play as and narratively and in both sides they did him so dirty, they kinda reverted him back to a meathead now which is disappointing. But what they did do to him in terms of gameplay??? It’s not terrible, but his glide has this weird delay that still keeps your speed, not only does this not make sense as Amy has her glide completely none delay. Because of this and i shit you not, you get a reboot of the infinite jump glitch from Rise of Lyric. Aside from this, his climbing doesn’t feel natural or fun to use, and is too finicky.
-Tails is in the middle of this, to me he was the least fun character to use. His flying power is only increases your height vertically for a limited time and then you can move around for a limited time. This is understandable to limit how broken flying can be. But I don’t know, it’s not really fun to use, and it’s still kinda broken, 06 at least had the right idea of capping it vertically at a certain point, in Frontiers it feels more like an glorified mid air jump rather than flying, I’m harping on this because Tails isn’t much of a very interesting character to play as, he can throw wrench’s like a Hammer Bro, he’s packing heat like Shadow, and that’s about it!

The biggest issue with all these characters is that they start you off at square one, you’ve got level 1 speed, defence and absolute no stats, not even the cyloop. You essentially have to do a whole game’s worth of upgrading on one Island. I do like the idea of finding experience points through the Koco but it’s just not fun to do this, especially given how in the night sections while there’s a comet storm, the game showers you with Koco and such, so it’s pointless. What all 3 characters also suck at is combat, they are not built for combat, Tails especially given how he doesn’t even have the homing attack. They can’t go combo mad on the enemies and only have a dinky 3 hit combo along with maybe an additional attack in you’re lucky. I don’t know if this was an intentional but you have to just, waddle away when you see an enemy. It’s overall overwhelming disappointing that the thing that the update was advertised on is bad, but is the other stuff go-

No, not at all.

How this update is structured is like a whole new island, it reminds me of Cannons Core or End of the world but instead of being a perfectly lengthy, challenging final level putting what you’ve learned throughout the game to the ultimate test. It’s drawn out to all hell. Of course, I can’t bring up this update without the challenge increase, I played on Normal and have heard horror stories of what it is on Hard and Extreme, and to me, it’s not designed very interestingly.

I love me a hard experience, especially for a platformer, but you have to understand the mechanics of the game and making that challenge satisfying around it, hell we’ve seen it done well in this game with the new Koco and Action chain challenges So what happened here? I’ll give props for less automation and such but whenever there’s fair and hard platforming challenge, there’s just double the amount of dull, Kazio little Timmy ass level. It feels like getting it over Sonic edition, especially with those towers, which unlike Rhea (my favourite part of the game) don’t have any pick me ups, if you mess up, it’s back to the beginning! And like, for some games like the 3D Mario games, you signed up for that shit since it’s the end of the game, you know that’s you’re getting into a tough as nails challenge that’s kinda unfair. But with this, I don’t get why it’s like this, again it’s not that I find it being hard is a bad thing, far from it! Especially as someone who thought Frontiers was piss easy. But here, Frontiers has no difficultly curve, so it’s 0 to 100 so quickly.

Imagine in Sonic Heroes, you played through Team Rose, and then for the final stage you had super hard mode thrown onto you, that’s what the final horizon is. It’s not even like the Adventure Packs from Unleashed, since there it’s at least linear stuff that you can quickly rebound from when you fail through checkpoints, the incentive for all of these are rankings, which Frontiers in the Open Zone, does not have. So you’re left with an unsatisfactory challenge that isn’t fun.

It also just has that artificial difficulty pumped to it, whenever you do the trials, your back to square one in terms of boss fights, instead of making the boss rush harder, they just make you have none of the stuff you’ve worked hard on. In the final boss, parrying actually have timing now, which the game was not built for a perfect parry like this and they just, throw it on you.

Let be clear, when the final
Horizon is good, it’s some of the best stuff in Frontiers (Which is Generations at its worst but whatever) but you have to trudge through just a lot of things that I don’t care for in this update. I’ll give props for being so ambitious with so many new assets and such, but like, my biggest thing with this account and whole review is how sometimes, ambition is the cause of downfall.

I would have much preferred just having the character playable in their own, self contained campaigns (Like you can’t even play as them outside of the DLC area, which was disappointing at first but seeing how they play I’m kinda glad lol), covering the events we only hear of in the main story, then, pull the end of the world stuff when Sonic gets corrupted at the end of Rhea, maybe use the Tower design or the new Cyberspace stages or something and then keep Ouranous structurally the same from the base game, then finally using the new final boss. That would have easily just make Frontiers slightly edge out (Maybe along with distinct themes for the last two islands as well but I can be too greedy), because as the Final Horizon, it’s mid… Not awful, but not peak either

Conclusion, Bros, I am tired

So, Sonic Frontiers is finally in complete open beta! It finally did it! But in all seriousness, this solidified my thoughts on Frontiers and new Sonic stuff as a whole, there’s a lot of great ideas here and concepts, but there’s always a catch and in this case, there’s too many to list . Every damn thing, this game, Sonic Origins, Sonic Prime, the movies, the comics nearly everything post Generations has this rule and it’s disappointing to see Sonic fall into the same things and fans kinda just, eat it up.


Let me clear, I don’t wanna be the fun police like a lot of Sonic detractors are who aren’t even fans of the franchise yet still check it out knowing they’ll dislike like it. I do not want to ridicule the franchise, I want to see it improve, but to do that, we need to acknowledge its flaws, it’s shortcomings yet celebrate when it’s gets something right. You can love something so much, if you think Frontiers is the peakest of fiction, then do! I am not stopping you to think that as someone whose opinions has flunacted in this game more than the UK’s economy. But understand that some of this is flawed in my and many others eyes and can do better, and critique has improved this game! Look at Update 2 and parts of Update 3! Without fan feedback, we wouldn’t have gotten the Spin Dash or New Game Plus! When a new game comes out, I will bet that the issues I have with this entire game, will hopefully be fixed and can be something that genuinely stand as one of my favourite Sonic games.

But as it is, I am tired. Maybe Superstars will bring me out of being tired, but I’m kinda tired of the series new stuff while semi satisfying me still falling to the same pitfalls killing the franchise, only this time people are less outspoken towards it. I will always cherish everything in the past, but as for the future, it looks bright, and it’s gonna be great for most, but I need to rest damnit.