It's far from a polished product: it's janky at times, jump momentum and mid-air control never quite felt right, the pop-in is abysmal, the terrain can be unwieldy in certain areas, and the third island is a bit of a pain to navigate. Not to mention they still can't seem to get away from using Green Hill and Chemical Plant Zone; the cyberspace levels seriously could've benefited from some visual variety.

But with that being said...Sonic Team finally did it. They actually did it; the blue blur is exciting again. What they've done with this new open zone system is a great foundation to build upon in the future. The Breath of the Wild inspiration is unmistakeable, but in terms of level design I think it falls somewhere between Bowser's Fury and Tony Hawk. The moment-to-moment gameplay is so fun and satisfying that I actually found it hard to put Frontiers down, despite all of its shortcomings. And by the second island I was actually getting really invested in the plot. It's a bit fragmented but damn if it wasn't great to see the cast acting like themselves again, and not the goofy archetypes we've had for years. You can tell Ian Flynn really cares about these characters. And also HOLY SHIT this has some of the most hype boss fights I've experienced in a very long time and they stand out as some of the best moments of the entire series.

I'll admit I've never been a big fan of the boost games. I fell off the series after Shadow and 06 so I never became very accustomed to them. Some fans swear by Generations being one of the series' best but I just thought it was fine, if not underwhelming; and the less said about Forces the better. Here the boost gameplay finally clicked with me. This is easily the most fun I've had with 3D Sonic since I was a kid playing SA 1&2 on GameCube all those years ago. It's been such a long time since I've had a Sonic game that was just fun to mess around in and not always have to race to the finish line. I beat the story after 23 hours which is kind of insane by this franchise's standards, and I will gladly be going back for completion.

For the first time in almost 20 years I'm actually excited for the future of Sonic.

Reviewed on Nov 16, 2022


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