Sonic Frontiers

Sonic Frontiers is finally here, and it’s certainly a fascinating experience. It’s a blend of several experiences of the blue hedgehog, and features one of the greatest narratives in the entire franchise. I’ve never been so emotionally invested in a Sonic storyline before. At least, not since perhaps the 90s cartoons.

However, I can’t say it’s all been a bed of roses for Sonic Frontiers. While I enjoy the combat, the world is frankly breathtaking, and the story is wonderful, it’s being held back by its own hubris. It’s pretty clear to me that it was inspired by huge, open-world games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but it learned little from them.

The world being empty at least makes sense when you’ve experienced more of the narrative, but that doesn’t change how empty and lifeless Sonic Frontiers can be.

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Sonic and his friends start the game off chasing Dr. Eggman, as well as the Chaos Emeralds

For mysterious reasons, Sonic and his friends are on the Starfall Islands, and even the early dialog was very interesting. Amy Rose, normally cheerful, sounded quite dour, while everyone felt very serious. It was a more serious tone than I was used to for the Sonic franchise, and I really appreciated that change of pace.

There are so many familiar faces here, and their interactions with Sonic are among the best parts of this entire game. Without spoiling the story, it’s a pretty somber but memorable tale. Sonic Frontiers has a brief but solid tutorial, and it teaches you pretty much everything you need to know about the gameplay loop.

Sonic is in a vast, open world, where you can freely explore the Starfall Islands. However, to get the needed Chaos Emeralds, you’ll have to put in some work. Some are rewards from story progress, while others require you to unlock Vaults.

The first step is to defeat the mini-bosses, which drop Gears. These are used to unlock huge stone portals, which, in turn, have the Cyber Space challenges that will feel more familiar to Sonic fans. These Sonic Frontiers stages have a series of tasks to complete and are high-speed, timed 2.5D stages.

While they’re fun and challenging, they look similar. There’s not nearly enough variation in these for me. But I will say, the gameplay in the Cyber Space stages was exceptional. It felt fast, and it felt fun — that’s what Sonic’s all about, after all.

As you complete Cyber Space challenges, you will unlock the keys that will grant you Chaos Emeralds. That’s the major gameplay loop for the game.

The actual exploration and combat experience is mostly great in Sonic Frontiers

Of course, there’s more to it than that. Though the world is huge, Sonic still moves incredibly fast. It’s easy to traverse the terrain, between high-speed dashing, wall climbing/running, or jumping on rails that speed you across the islands.

You’ll need to increase your stats, though, if you want to make life easier. That means finding the adorable little stone Koco creatures, and the various colored seeds. Take these to the Elder Koco who can increase your Ring Capacity, Speed, Attack, Defense, and more.

You’ll find these as rewards for the various puzzles you complete across the island, which will also grant Memory Tokens. You’ll need these to push the story forward, which, while a neat concept, quickly becomes frustrating. Despite being an open-world game, it also gates so much behind a variety of currencies.

That’s one of the big hurdles for Sonic Frontiers - it feels like such a slow slog, a tedious grind. The gameplay itself is solid, and I enjoy solving puzzles. Those events and puzzles always felt so random, but I loved them. It was just the right amount of chaos. I love hurdling Sonic across the landscape at the speed of sound.

While the running is great, the actual jumping is infuriating. It’s a slow, floaty jump, and I never know exactly where I’m going to land. I can’t tell you the number of times I tried gingerly jumping from one platform to the next, only to fall to my doom. Or I’d try to jump, and go sailing off into the distance and fall to my death.

It was almost never clear, and it was easily my least favorite part of Sonic Frontiers. But the rest of the movement? Fantastic, that’s for sure. As long as there was ground underneath my feet, I could safely jump and attack.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall, right? Right? (Image via SEGA)

The combat’s very easy. You can dash in to attack several of the weaker enemies to destroy them in one hit. For larger foes, dash in, and then mash your attack button to repeatedly strike them. You’ll also sometimes have to dash around them to break their shields, adding some variety to battle. As you unlock skills, you can also use a rapid-fire attack that makes some of the harder enemies negligible.

You also have giant bosses who offer unique, challenging gameplay. It felt a lot like Shadow of the Colossus. You’ll have to use all of your skills and cunning to overcome the titanic bosses of Sonic Frontiers.

This was another very enjoyable part of the game. I loved running around on these huge foes. It was a pleasant change of pace for the Sonic franchise without a doubt. The game will help teach you what you need to do.

There are enemies scattered across the Starfall Islands, but honestly, it feels pretty empty to me. There is a nice variety of foes, but I don’t feel like there are quite enough of them. As you defeat enemies and explore, you’ll also gain Skill Points, which are used to unlock useful skills for Sonic to use in battle.

The visual design and music of Sonic Frontiers is terrific

One of the definite positives is the style of the game. Sonic and his friends all look terrific in Sonic Frontiers. Even Dr. Eggman looks just the way he should. The stark, sharp designs of the enemies in the game were a delightful contrast from the colorful characters of the Sonic universe.

I enjoyed the music, the electronic sound was amazing. That’s one place Sonic Team never misses - the music is always on point, and that didn’t change here. I enjoyed the voice acting too. At first, it felt kind of weird, but I really got used to the more somber tone of the game.

Even the tragic but adorable Kocos made me smile. They were so cute to see pop up and chitter.

In conclusion

Sonic Frontiers is far from a bad game, and is easily the best 3D Sonic title I’ve played in years. It is an enjoyable experience, but it’s held back by itself. There is just so much grinding to do, you have Gears and Keys to unlock, Memory Hearts, Kocos, seeds, and rings.

Even with that, I’ve genuinely enjoyed wandering the Starfall Islands and seeing all there was to see. From fishing to fighting, I really enjoyed how the game was put together. I’d like to see another title in this storyline, but with more polish. An offering with less mindless stuff to do, and more actual adventure.

It's a huge, but unfortunately pretty empty world (Image via SEGA)

While flawed, Sonic Frontiers is still very much a fun game, and it’s definitely good. I wouldn’t call it bad by any stretch, but it’s a long way away from the greatest titles in the franchise.