It’s been a pretty great year for Sonic fans. We had a sequel to the surprise hit theatrical film, back in June Sega released “Sonic Origins” (check out my review HERE) which was a solid collection of classic Sonic games. Now that we are getting close to ending the year, we got the long awaited “Sonic Frontiers,” a game that would seemingly redefine what we would expect in new Sonic games, with a vast open world 3D adventure. Does this live up to the many years of hype and anticipation? I would say… mostly yes, but it’s not without some issues. The bar was set fairly low with Sonic’s last 3D game in “Sonic Forces” so I’m happy to report that at the very least, this new title has surpassed that low bar to a respectable amount.
The general story of “Sonic Frontiers” consists of Sonic exploring the mysterious islands of Starfall after falling through some sort of wormhole. Your friends (Tails, Knuckles, and Amy) have been separated to different islands and are trapped there. Sonic’s goal is to collect chaos emeralds and to rescue your friends. For such a big game in scope, this being the very first “open world” game in the Sonic franchise it surprisingly carries with it a good amount of variety. There are these separate islands you will explore which slowly expand the overall map, by rescuing your friends you will need to complete a ton of puzzles on each island. I’m not exaggerating here, there are a lot of puzzles, fortunately they can be quick to finish and vary in type.
Another aspect in the gameplay is the “cyberspace” where occasionally you will be playing levels that brought me back to playing a “Sonic Adventure” game back in the GameCube era. They’re much more classic Sonic levels where you need to get to the end of the level alive and often will be in a side-scrolling point of view. These levels are a lot of fun, hitting me with just enough nostalgia, but also a sense of modernism that just had me super excited every time I entered cyberspace. They also mix things up a bit by adding specific goals to some levels, for example you may need to complete a stage with a minimum number of rings.
Back in the open world, another new experience for Sonic gamers is the combat. Throughout the islands you will encounter several new types of enemies and will have to figure out the best way to take each of them down with the different types of ways Sonic can attack. Leveling Sonic up is also something new that I haven’t seen in this series, and while the combat I found a bit strange to adjust to at first, it’s honestly very functional and fun enough that I respect this fresh direction they’re going with Sonic. The boss fights are spectacularly over the top to a huge epic sized scale reminiscent of older “God of War” titles where you’re a tiny figure fighting these gargantuan creatures. Similar to fighting smaller enemies, you figure out their weakness and exploit it, but it can often turn into big QuickTime events that are more for show than something that takes immense skill. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, this whole game is aiming for a specific anime vibe and I’m all here for it.
Unfortunately, I’m sorry to say there are some serious technical issues that really hinder this title from being promoted from “good” to “great.” These issues really stand out like a sore thumb, there are so many environmental “pop-ins” that it actually messed me up quite a lot. For example, when running fast and jumping far to one platform to the next, there are many times where you may not even see the platform ahead of you and you’re essentially taking a leap of faith hoping that there’s a platform supposed to be there and will show up before you land. This is incredibly frustrating and needs to be a priority for the developers in future patches. The camera can also be just as glitchy and have a mind of its own, randomly choosing to mess me up while I’m climbing or running up something a little more complex forcing me to fall and start over.
This level of unpolish is a huge blow for an overall enjoyable experiment on the evolution of the Sonic Franchise. All-in-all though, I still had a good time, “Sonic Frontiers” is a great foundation and new starting point of the future potential of where this series can go. I’d also like to note that this is my one hundredth review writing for Gaming Cypher, and I must say, I’m pretty stoked that this was the game I had to review for it. This is a win for Sonic fans, this whole year has been a big win, the future looks bright for our favorite hedgehog. Hopefully releasing this title at the same time as “God of War: Ragnarök” will become a smart play for counter programming and not a release window where it was doomed to fail from the start.
7.5/10
Sonic Frontiers is available starting at $59.99 on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch family of systems and PC.
For more information, please visit: https://frontiers.sonicthehedgehog.com.
Related: Reviews by Nick Navarro
Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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