I want to lead with saying this is the first review I've written in this style, where I am breaking apart my writing with Bullet Points like this. If you like me doing it this way, or have any ways I can improve it, or even if you hate it, feel free to comment. On with the review.
What is Sonic Frontiers
The latest Sonic game is the first one I know that has gone open-world or at least five open-world environments. Sonic and friends follow after the Chaos Emeralds as they are pulled towards a new land. Sonic being the only one to escape Cyberspace, is following the instructions of a mysterious voice guiding him. The game has you learning about an ancient civilization that died out, but had all of these structures to contain the Chaos Emeralds.
A mix of Good and Bad in the Story
I will start right off with the bad, there are a lot of things in this game that are calling back to other sonic games to help give context to how impressive certain artifacts and enemies are, or why characters feel the way they do. I know none of these games, so a lot of the context that comes with them was lost on me. And the game seemed to just assume I had an idea of what was going on and that I already cared about it. It's likely the same for anyone not familiar with the Sonic lore.
That said, the characters are all likable. Even missing context, I kind of feel for Tails, and Knuckles was just inherently likable here. And the new character, Sage, was just wonderful. The story itself was pretty basic but effective. I like the portrayal of the Ancient race through the memories that live on in the Koco, and it was a fun way to explain their history.
The good easily outweighs the bad here.
The Music is Fire
So the portal stages all have these musical tracks with vocals, and this isn't always a good idea in a game. Here it works, and it gets you pumped. I'm not a musical analyst, so I'll just link this here.
Portal Stages Are some fairly classic Sonic Fun
Whenever you go into Cyberspace the levels are either a sidescrolling stage or a stage where you are running forward down the track. These both play a lot like levels in the older sonic games where you just try to reach the end. Collect rings, and red rings, and beat the stage in the time limit all to obtain more keys to unlock the shrines holding the Chaos Emeralds. They aren't as intricate as the older sonic games, but since it's not the entire game I don't think they need to be. As a piece of the whole, they end up being a lot of fun, plus the aforementioned music makes them very enjoyable to run through.
Open World stages are largely engaging
The open World stages of Sonic are full of things to do. Some of the more fun ones can be the fights against giant enemies that drop the gears, something you need to unlock the portals. Each world has three or four different figures like this, each one having its unique ways of taking down. You end up making use of all the game mechanics in these fights, and with a couple of exceptions, they are all fantastic. Spires were the ones that gave me the most issue.
Also, there are a variety of challenges to unlock more of the minimap. Finish challenges, find Koco and seeds to power up, and unlock extra scenes to learn more about the world. This becomes the main core of the game, and it benefits from the sheer variety. Sonic Frontiers knows how to use an open world.
The Challenges can get a bit too repetitive
While the above is true, it's also true to say that the challenges can start to feel a bit to simple too often. A few really simple challenges are fine, but there are so many early on that it can feel like busy work than actually doing something. For example, one challenge has you jumping side to side to step on the glowing block. There are only three blocks any time this challenge comes up, and the time is extremely generous. You really can clear them but just hopping across the entire length back and forth and have zero worry of failing. And it comes up multiple times in the first world. I think there is room to play around with the same kind of challenges without them becoming this dull.
The Third World Is Horrible
So there is a thing that can happen in any world, and that is the game forces you into a platforming segment while in the open world. From time to time this is fine, but the third world feels like this makes up more than half of the world. It stops feeling like an open world and just feels like you are going back and forth between these segments, and kills the immersion. I ended up learning how to avoid going into these sections just to get around quicker.
I hate leveling Speed and Ring Capacity
So when gathering seeds of power and defense, it automatically raises the level of your strength and defense stats based on how many you turn in. Speed and Ring Capacity, however, you have to raise the level of each one at a time. If you are like me and gathered a lot of Koco, you will be doing this process twenty or more times: Select the one you want to level, watch a couple of seconds of animation, and click through the dialogue.
Several minutes it took to use all the Koco I had gathered, and oh god was it boring.
The Fish Look Horrifying
Final Thoughts
This game is on the cusp of being great. I really enjoyed it, and very much recommend it, but I think it's got some flaws that just prevent it from being a classic. I am happy to hear Sonic Team is wanting to use this game as the basis for new entries because there is a lot of room to grow. It was a great first shot at making Sonic a more open-world experience, and I look forward to what they come out with next.
Tails is one of those characters but I can´t say his island is great either, he actually got a nice treatment, I found the activities on this game to get repetitive too, but the game is not that long
Now this Sonic game looks far better than the previous ones. And I kind of liked the way you written this post and you may stick to it, thanks.
I just wish I remembered to grab more screenshots, I'd have preferred to have more fitting pictures under each section, but that's something I often forget to do when I'm getting into a game.
It's normal to forget about that when you really enjoy the game.
I'm playing GTA V and I used to take screenshoots while playing and recording but now I'm only recording the gameplay and enjoying the game. I'll take screenshots from the recording if needed.
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it seem like a good game. is this released?
Yeah, it's been out for a little while. I was a bit late to the party on it.
I do wonder how it will be for me the day I somehow get to play it (since I currently can't); it is interesting to see an Open World Sonic game, and its the first game in forever that people are unanimously praising (or at least considering at most a decent to good game...which is somehow a thing that hadn't happened in a while).
And of course the music really delivers; good to see they finally went crazy (and also experimental) with these again :)