I’m just as shocked as anyone else that this game came out the way it did.
After almost five years of development and two years of reveals, rumors, leaks, discussions, and other things, the latest mainline title in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, Sonic Frontiers, released on November 8th of 2022. And wow, I have a lot of thoughts.
First, let’s get the negatives out of the way:
1. While I don’t see the pop-in in the environment as egregious as others have stated, this issue is distracting sometimes when running around fast and doing platforming. This mostly is an engine issue that will hopefully be fixed by the next game.
2. The cyberspace levels, if they do come back, need some revisions in terms of Sonic’s control and the constant theme repetition. The last island had probably the best set of cyberspace levels but Sonic control in cyberspace always felt very awkward to me, despite being better than past executions of it.
3. The game is rushed in many parts including the island theming in the last two islands, the plot point of Sonic becoming corrupt and then fine, the ending (especially the secret one), chaos island feeling underdeveloped and forcefully 2D, the final villain reveal, and some technical issues. This is more of a Sega problem, but I think Sonic Team should have been given more time to iron out some of these kinks despite the product still being really good in my opinion.
4. Combat is excellent but enemy difficulty should be increased and maybe add more abilities or upgrades to existing ones to add more to the system as is.
5. Sonic’s movement is excellent here but I think adding the spin dash to his movement and utilizing wall running more would be good for a sequel. Also fixing up the trick animations.
With all that said though, Sonic Frontiers honestly is the best 3D Sonic game since Adventure 2 in my eyes.
Sonic’s movement in his 3D outings have always been very hit or miss for me, especially during the boost era, but I really feel like Sonic Team has hit it out of the park here. Sonic feels great to move around here, bringing back what was great in the adventure games and making it modernized. Sonic not only moves fast (and you can upgrade this), but I feel like I have a strong sense of control with him even while fast. Of course there is the occasional jankiness, but honestly it never detracted too much from my experience and some of the best sonic games (i.e. the adventure games) have a level of jank that add a lot of charm or potential for speed running or pulling off tricks.
This same praise continues with the combat as Sonic is able to punch and kick and do all kinds of crazy moves and combos against foes on the islands. While the combat is no DMC or Bayonetta, the combat is very fun to pull off and flashy, despite the enemies being too easy to truly hit the full potential of it right now. I really want Sonic Team to keep working at this because this is honestly the best combat ever in a sonic game, which isn’t saying much given Unleashed and Heroes and other entries.
The story here is very strong too in more of a “serious” outing compared to recent entries that relied on a more Saturday morning cartoon pretense. I really enjoyed the characterization of everyone here and the level of mystery too on what the star fall islands are and who the ancient civilization was previously. This game additionally avoids many problems of 2000s era Sonic games that leaned in the serious direction but missed hard in terms of story cohesion or character progression (Heroes, Shadow, 06, etc). Of course the story isn’t perfect and has some flaws, but Sonic Frontiers’ story truly shined from start to finish. Also, the music fucks hard here too.
The open “zone” design here and collectibles are really well put together with the puzzles, cyberspace levels, exploration, and other components to the open world. While the puzzles were a bit easy, I feel like the difficulty of them were not a problem and kept the flow of the game going well similar to a Kirby and the forgotten land or Super Mario Odyssey or Bowser’s Fury (though a post game difficulty area or mode would be fun). Traveling the islands with sonic feel great and never grew dull for me as the areas were filled up with so much to do and see. And this game is genuinely beautiful to look, superseding even Unleashed in terms of graphics. While I do get the critiques of the islands feeling not very “Sonic-y”, Sonic Team did a pretty good job with incorporating some Sonic iconography in the areas and making structures and platforming compatible and fun with Sonic’s movement. And yes, even the incorporation of the rails on the island were a decent job, despite looking very off putting in early footage.
All this to say, Sonic Frontiers stands as my favorite modern Sonic game since the adventure games and is an incredible innovation to those duology of games akin to Odyssey towards super Mario 64. While general audiences might not take to all the quirks that are inherent to the game, I highly recommend Sonic fans check this out if you are still in the loop of the series or are trying to get back in. I’m truly very curious and in high hopes of Sonic Team’s next game to follow Frontiers given how much they’ve done right here with the circumstances surrounding its development. Hopefully Sega provides more development time and resources for the devs to fully address the issues in Frontiers to make another great entry. In the meantime for the next mainline game, I’d love to see a spin off or small game that uses the combat in Frontiers and builds it up akin to a DMC or Bayonetta type game. Maybe with Knuckles, Shadow or even Blaze or someone else as the main character of it.
8.5/10
After almost five years of development and two years of reveals, rumors, leaks, discussions, and other things, the latest mainline title in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, Sonic Frontiers, released on November 8th of 2022. And wow, I have a lot of thoughts.
First, let’s get the negatives out of the way:
1. While I don’t see the pop-in in the environment as egregious as others have stated, this issue is distracting sometimes when running around fast and doing platforming. This mostly is an engine issue that will hopefully be fixed by the next game.
2. The cyberspace levels, if they do come back, need some revisions in terms of Sonic’s control and the constant theme repetition. The last island had probably the best set of cyberspace levels but Sonic control in cyberspace always felt very awkward to me, despite being better than past executions of it.
3. The game is rushed in many parts including the island theming in the last two islands, the plot point of Sonic becoming corrupt and then fine, the ending (especially the secret one), chaos island feeling underdeveloped and forcefully 2D, the final villain reveal, and some technical issues. This is more of a Sega problem, but I think Sonic Team should have been given more time to iron out some of these kinks despite the product still being really good in my opinion.
4. Combat is excellent but enemy difficulty should be increased and maybe add more abilities or upgrades to existing ones to add more to the system as is.
5. Sonic’s movement is excellent here but I think adding the spin dash to his movement and utilizing wall running more would be good for a sequel. Also fixing up the trick animations.
With all that said though, Sonic Frontiers honestly is the best 3D Sonic game since Adventure 2 in my eyes.
Sonic’s movement in his 3D outings have always been very hit or miss for me, especially during the boost era, but I really feel like Sonic Team has hit it out of the park here. Sonic feels great to move around here, bringing back what was great in the adventure games and making it modernized. Sonic not only moves fast (and you can upgrade this), but I feel like I have a strong sense of control with him even while fast. Of course there is the occasional jankiness, but honestly it never detracted too much from my experience and some of the best sonic games (i.e. the adventure games) have a level of jank that add a lot of charm or potential for speed running or pulling off tricks.
This same praise continues with the combat as Sonic is able to punch and kick and do all kinds of crazy moves and combos against foes on the islands. While the combat is no DMC or Bayonetta, the combat is very fun to pull off and flashy, despite the enemies being too easy to truly hit the full potential of it right now. I really want Sonic Team to keep working at this because this is honestly the best combat ever in a sonic game, which isn’t saying much given Unleashed and Heroes and other entries.
The story here is very strong too in more of a “serious” outing compared to recent entries that relied on a more Saturday morning cartoon pretense. I really enjoyed the characterization of everyone here and the level of mystery too on what the star fall islands are and who the ancient civilization was previously. This game additionally avoids many problems of 2000s era Sonic games that leaned in the serious direction but missed hard in terms of story cohesion or character progression (Heroes, Shadow, 06, etc). Of course the story isn’t perfect and has some flaws, but Sonic Frontiers’ story truly shined from start to finish. Also, the music fucks hard here too.
The open “zone” design here and collectibles are really well put together with the puzzles, cyberspace levels, exploration, and other components to the open world. While the puzzles were a bit easy, I feel like the difficulty of them were not a problem and kept the flow of the game going well similar to a Kirby and the forgotten land or Super Mario Odyssey or Bowser’s Fury (though a post game difficulty area or mode would be fun). Traveling the islands with sonic feel great and never grew dull for me as the areas were filled up with so much to do and see. And this game is genuinely beautiful to look, superseding even Unleashed in terms of graphics. While I do get the critiques of the islands feeling not very “Sonic-y”, Sonic Team did a pretty good job with incorporating some Sonic iconography in the areas and making structures and platforming compatible and fun with Sonic’s movement. And yes, even the incorporation of the rails on the island were a decent job, despite looking very off putting in early footage.
All this to say, Sonic Frontiers stands as my favorite modern Sonic game since the adventure games and is an incredible innovation to those duology of games akin to Odyssey towards super Mario 64. While general audiences might not take to all the quirks that are inherent to the game, I highly recommend Sonic fans check this out if you are still in the loop of the series or are trying to get back in. I’m truly very curious and in high hopes of Sonic Team’s next game to follow Frontiers given how much they’ve done right here with the circumstances surrounding its development. Hopefully Sega provides more development time and resources for the devs to fully address the issues in Frontiers to make another great entry. In the meantime for the next mainline game, I’d love to see a spin off or small game that uses the combat in Frontiers and builds it up akin to a DMC or Bayonetta type game. Maybe with Knuckles, Shadow or even Blaze or someone else as the main character of it.
8.5/10
NOWITSREYNTIME17
2 months ago