If you’ve played the first two hours, you’ve played the whole game. It consists of repetition upon repetition of the same copy-pasted on-rails mechanics in slightly different arrangements broken up by running straight lines through uninspired overworlds, and there’s a refusal to develop mechanics beyond their barest essentials. Terminals give access to short traditional-style levels varying wildly in quality with some being direct copies from previous games.
Progression systems feel poorly thought-out. There's a pointless and quickly completed skill tree lacking any meaningful decision-making. Reaching max ring capacity gives Sonic a speed boost so raising the cap feels counterintuitive. Fishing for twenty minutes increases your stats faster than any number of items you gather from the overworld throughout the whole game. Ultimately, these systems feel tacked on to spread items around the world and justify the open-zone format.
Combat isn't great either. Cycloop (drawing circles around enemies) is a cool interpretation of Sonic's running for combat, but fighting enemies is essentially watching cutscenes of long special attack animations. The best encounters are more puzzle-oriented ones that barely involve combat. Bosses often focus too much on spectacle with too little interaction. For one, you just hold the parry button (there's no timing element) until the boss lets you damage it.
The soundtrack is great and the story is good, though. From the orchestral melodies developing with story progression, the drum and bass jams of the cyberspace levels, and the screaming vocals in boss fights, there's tons of variety. The story takes an introspective approach in which characters examine their pasts and presents and look to the future. It’s simple and heartfelt with payoff for longtime fans, but those new to the series may feel alienated. I do think the ending could’ve used just a little more work, however.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed in Sonic Frontiers. It was my first Sonic game in many years, and there was a novelty in playing again at first. The most fun I had was using momentum to scale up some cliffsides. I think a shift away from the boring cookie-cutter on-rails sequences and towards more organic interactions with unique and varied terrain would be a big step in the right direction for the next iteration of open world Sonic.
Progression systems feel poorly thought-out. There's a pointless and quickly completed skill tree lacking any meaningful decision-making. Reaching max ring capacity gives Sonic a speed boost so raising the cap feels counterintuitive. Fishing for twenty minutes increases your stats faster than any number of items you gather from the overworld throughout the whole game. Ultimately, these systems feel tacked on to spread items around the world and justify the open-zone format.
Combat isn't great either. Cycloop (drawing circles around enemies) is a cool interpretation of Sonic's running for combat, but fighting enemies is essentially watching cutscenes of long special attack animations. The best encounters are more puzzle-oriented ones that barely involve combat. Bosses often focus too much on spectacle with too little interaction. For one, you just hold the parry button (there's no timing element) until the boss lets you damage it.
The soundtrack is great and the story is good, though. From the orchestral melodies developing with story progression, the drum and bass jams of the cyberspace levels, and the screaming vocals in boss fights, there's tons of variety. The story takes an introspective approach in which characters examine their pasts and presents and look to the future. It’s simple and heartfelt with payoff for longtime fans, but those new to the series may feel alienated. I do think the ending could’ve used just a little more work, however.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed in Sonic Frontiers. It was my first Sonic game in many years, and there was a novelty in playing again at first. The most fun I had was using momentum to scale up some cliffsides. I think a shift away from the boring cookie-cutter on-rails sequences and towards more organic interactions with unique and varied terrain would be a big step in the right direction for the next iteration of open world Sonic.