Sonic Frontiers is kind of a mess. There are some good ideas here, but they are unfortunately plagued by a myriad of design problems. Even when I thought something was working really well, I couldn’t help but notice all of the bad that came along with it.

First, the world. Visually speaking, the world feels barren and lifeless. Steel structures, floating rails, and a variety of other objects populate the landscape and create a sort of playground for Sonic to run, jump, and grind around in. Unfortunately, this same structure is used for every island in the game. It felt to me as though you are not so much exploring the world itself but an elaborate set of floating toys on top of the backdrop of an island. Very rarely is the environment itself used to proper effect in exploration.

The story progression is too formulaic. Collect Memory Tokens to activate cutscenes to proceed in the story, defeat Titan enemies for Gears to activate Portals, complete Portals for Vault Keys to unlock Chaos Emeralds... Rinse and repeat for each island. I would have loved for more dynamic story progression, but this is all we get. When I reached the third island and realized it was going to be the exact same thing as the first two, I had to take a break from the game. It simply felt like too much of a chore.

Memory Tokens are used to access cutscenes with the game’s cast of characters (mainly Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, Tails, Sage, Eggman). These cutscenes, almost without exception, consist of characters standing around and talking amongst themselves. That is to say, they are quite boring. More dynamic storytelling would have done wonders for this drab world.

I mentioned Portals and Vault Keys earlier. The Portals (unlocked with Gears) grant access to one of a total of 30 “Cyberspace” levels. These levels play more like a traditional Sonic experience in familiar locales such as Green Hill, Sky Sanctuary, and more. Compared to the main game, these zones are incredibly colourful and feel great to play. I had so much fun with these levels that after beating the main game, I went back and played through all of them a second time! My only complaint is that they practically give you Red Rings for free a lot of the time. (My understanding is that collecting all of the Red Rings in a stage should be somewhat of a challenge, with them hidden around the stage, but in Cyberspace levels they will often just put them directly in your path, removing any sense of achievement you would get for finding them.)

The unique enemy encounters and boss fights employ unique mechanics and were mostly fun, but this cannot be said for some enemy types, which at times felt like a chore to fight. To add to this, without even fully exploring each island, my character was fully upgraded (all abilities unlocked) before the game was even half over, effectively eliminating the need to participate in any combat for EXP, so I began to avoid it unless necessary.

The various “challenges/puzzles” hidden around the map are mostly a joke. I cannot stress how just how trivial most of these are. It really just felt like busywork and not comparable to any kind of puzzle you would find in, for example, a Zelda game.

One minigame that the developers had the audacity to make mandatory for main story progression is the Pinball game on Chaos Island. With limited continues, it tasks you at achieving a specific score (I believe 5 million points). Given that pinball is not exactly skill based and your ball can just so happen to bounce strangely and drop out of the playing field at random, endeavoring for this score can feel like an impossible trial at first. It took me multiple failed attempts and over 30 minutes just playing this minigame before I was lucky enough to get a high score multiplayer and move on.

The world of Sonic Frontiers feels fun to run around in for a time, but quickly overstays its welcome with a lack of variety and rinse and repeat progression. If there is one saving grace for this game then it is in the Cyberspace levels, but these are just one small part of a much larger game. I can tell that there is enough to collect and explore to add dozens of hours in playtime, but I could not feel any incentive or desire to go out and do so.

Sonic fans will probably enjoy this one either way, but otherwise I think your mileage may vary. There is a lot to collect (mostly busywork), but not a whole lot to see across the five islands, and while a solid foundation might be here, I couldn’t help but feel wanting for something more.

Given that I had heard only negative reception going into Sonic Forces, I kept my expectations low. Perhaps this helped the game to leave a lasting impression on me, as I was pleasantly surprised. The game, if a bit short, was mostly fun to play through.

Apart from Sonic stages, there are also classic Sonic stages (2D) and “Avatar” stages, where you play as your custom Sonic character. Wisps make a return from Sonic Colors, providing unique abilities that can be used throughout the game, and also provide some incentive for replaying stages with a different Wisp equipped.

The character creation process is rather basic, but there are hundreds of clothing items for you to customize your character. This customization is made out to be a big part of the game, and is the main type of reward you’ll receive for completing stages and missions (unique tasks/quests in their own menu). For example, clear stage X with an S rank for 5 customization items, etc.

Since there is a wide variety of customization options, it was fun to play around with my character’s appearance every now and again, but there is truly an absurd amount of items to unlock for your character. In fact, every time you simply clear a stage for the first time you’re made to click through five or more new items you just unlocked. This got pretty tedious after the third or fourth stage, and I found myself wishing that it could be skipped or had an Accept All button.

The story is not bad for a Sonic game. I appreciate that the characters are involved in and outside of stages, talking about what’s going on and communicating with you as your character (even if the constant “Rookie” feels a bit jarring). Cutscenes are mostly dynamic with unique character actions, which is more credit than I can give some other Sonic titles.

Along with the main story, you can unlock some Special and EX stages. These are mostly short and gimmicky stages that I felt didn’t really add much to the game. There are also SOS encounters, which have you replay various stages in order to save characters trapped inside of them. I didn't see much point in doing these.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Forces. Outside of a few stages with questionable level design, the game felt pretty well put together. Just don’t expect a masterpiece!

Sonic Colors was originally released on the Nintendo Wii a great many years ago, and is widely considered among fans to be one of the great 3D Sonic titles. How does it hold up today?

Included in this “Ultimate” port of the game are a handful of new features such as the new Jade Wisp power, Rival Race challenges, unlockable cosmetic options for Sonic, and a brand new soundtrack. (The original soundtrack is still used along with the new one by alternating between stages.)

There are just six Rival Race challenges in total, and the new Jade Wisp and its power are very much just a gimmick. It was not used to any great effect in any stage except for the purpose of traversing through walls to find hidden Red Rings or Park Tokens (used to purchase cosmetics). Speaking of cosmetics...

The cosmetic options allow you to customize Sonic’s gloves, shoes, and give your dash a different visual effect. Being completely honest, none of them look good. In fact, I would go so far as to say they all look very tacky and unappealing. Not to mention, you can also purchase custom Player Icons for your save file with Park Tokens. There are no online features to speak of, so why would you do this? You can spend hundreds of Park Tokens unlocking Player Icons, but why? I have no idea. Park Tokens as a whole feel like a meaningless waste of time, and this is not helped by the fact that the place where you can use them requires you to quit the game to the Main Menu in order to access. It’s a mess.

Having said all of this, it would appear that I have a negative opinion of the game, but this is not the case! The gameplay holds up, and stages are (mostly) a blast to play through. Sonic has access to a wide variety of unique abilities via Wisp powers, which allow for engaging puzzles or alternate ways to approach certain terrain or obstacles. However, the end of world bosses can feel like a chore, especially once you notice that they simply reused the same three boss encounters for the second half of the game.

The story and dialogue are nothing to write home about. This is made worse by the fact that the cutscenes have not been remade for modern consoles, and so what you get here is the same grainy 480p that you did on the Wii. It really took me out of the experience, personally, as the rest of the game has been properly remastered and runs in smooth 60fps.

The game itself is mostly a fun experience, but it’s really hard for me to give much praise to this “Ultimate” port. If anything, you can now play Sonic Colors on modern hardware in 60fps. That’s worth something, I suppose!