Quite possibly the strangest, most experimental game I've ever played, Sonic Frontiers is for me the definitive example of a wholly unique platformer. Damn near everything in Frontiers is bodged together and noticeably flawed (at least everything that isn't utter rubbish), but the benefits of this wonderfully loose design are nigh-impossible to count.

Breaking this game over my knee is more pure joy than almost anything else in this franchise, and what genuinely does work helps all that partially-successful weirdness to amount to a great experience. I could (and would happily) point out countless glaring problems with this game, but when I actually sit down and play the damn thing I'm usually having a lovely time. Sonic Frontiers is about as far from as perfect as is generally possible, but it's a beautiful mess.

Decent game. It has some really nice highlights: most notably the experience of the open world. The last two islands especially are well designed and I think the game did a wonderful job of immersing you and making you feel like Sonic.

The game starts off quite slow, but I think it really becomes fun after the second island. Just running around the world was something I got a lot of enjoyment out of. The controls are nothing to write home about, but they were pretty solid in my experience.

My main criticism would probably be the story, which felt kind of like an afterthought when compared to the world design. Another thing I was getting quite bored of near the end of the game was the overall gameplay loop: get gears, then keys, then emeralds, fight boss, next island. I wasn't minding it at first but some parts (especially the cyberspace levels - mostly just copies of old levels with very few design elements) can get extremely repetitive and tedious.

Overall, I think the game has a solid foundation for a sequel, a game I think I'll give a shot. I recommend the game, but I would only buy it on sale if possible. I got my copy for $30 USD and I think my money was well spent.

Y con esto, doy concluida mi maratón jugando los juegos principales de Sonic en 3D sin "spin-offs" o juegos extra, y que puedo decir, definitivamente fue un viaje lleno de altibajos muy marcados, pero me es casi imposible decir que a pesar de eso no lo disfruté, y sinceramente, Sonic Frontiers se consagra como uno de mis juegos favoritos del erizo no solo en 3D, sino posiblemente de toda la saga, sin ser obviamente una obra maestra y teniendo sus errores bien marcados, pero vamos por partes.

Sonic Frontiers nos coloca en una nueva aventura del erizo en donde esta vez nos vemos tragador por un agujero de gusano (más o menos) en donde nos vamos a otro mundo, si me llego a equivocar en algún punto de la historia no es mi culpa, muchas veces intenta profundizar de mas en cosas que no es necesario, además no quiero centrarme en este punto porque siento que más allá de la historia en si, el juego brilla por los temas que toca y la ambientación en si, a su vez de inspiraciones extremadamente marcadas que tiene, tanto como a Nier Automata, como a Evangelion (Así es amigos, esto es un juego de Sonic), y sinceramente, doy gracias que tome como base esto y trate de expandir otras cosas, es aquí donde puedo decir que eggman se convierte en uno de mis personajes favoritos de la historia por como lo presentan y la expansión de personaje que se le da aquí.

El tema jugable me sorprendió ya que siempre se vendió este juego como un mundo abierto (al menos por trailers o el boca a boca de la gente), y finalmente no fue así, si bien tiene elementos tomados de este genero como el mapa del mundo con marcas de todo tipo y cosas por hacer, finalmente me recuerda un poco más a lo que plantea xenoblade, escenarios enormes con mucho contenido por hacer, en sí no hay atalayas, y se siente muy bien el como están construidos los mapas, en ningún momento se hace pesado ya que estamos usando a Sonic, viaje rápido no eché en falta porque nuestro personaje corre rápido y los mapas están hechos para sentir progresión y no tener que hacer casi nunca backtracking, las mecánicas funcionan espectacular, no tuve problema con ninguna más allá de poder correr a velocidades enfermas cuando tienes el máximo de anillos, siento que el juego si bien tiene su historia y progresión a seguir, hasta cierto punto te suelta en los mapas y te dice "juega", y ese sentimiento es espectacular. La radio es uno de los mejores agregados ya que al estar jugando y recorriendo mapas grandes siempre es bueno tener una playlist y el juego te la da, las canciones son coleccionables repartidos por el mapa, pero se me hizo muy satisfactorio encontrarlas e ir cambiando de música mientras estaba jugando. Creo que el punto negativo que si encuentro de este es el hecho de que el juego tiene niveles típicos de Sonic en donde entrar y te dan llaves para progresar en la historia, pero estos sobran completamente, te hacen jugar green hill zone como 20 veces, los niveles duran menos de un minuto, se sientes puestos porque sí y sin ningún tipo de sentido, y los jefes si que es cierto que en escancia pasan a ser unos machaca botones sin mucho que pensar, pero ya vamos a llegar ahí.

Gráficamente el juego es hermoso, lo jugué en playstation 5 y sinceramente le encuentro muy pocas pegas, los escenarios tienen muy buenas texturas, siempre anduvo bien de fps, está todo muy bien detallado, si que es cierto que muchas veces el pop in de algunas cosas está raro, ya que hay veces que tienes que llegar a lugares elevados y no sabes como se llega a menos que te acerques y veas que la plataforma que tenias que usar no la veías por estar muy lejos. Los diseños de los enemigos pese a ser simples, cumplen bastante bien y son espectaculares, los encontré muy llamativos y no desentonan tanto con lo que debería ser un Sonic ya que son robots al fin y al cabo.

Ahora creo que voy a tocar el punto más importante para mi que es la música, si bien es cierto hay muchos temazos para los minijefes repartidos por el mapa o incluso el de las islas en sí, todos sabemos que el juego brilla por el ost de los jefes, y aqui quiero dar una pequeña historia. Hace mucho tiempo un pequeño Fanno estaba pasando por su adolescencia y pasó por "LA FASE" en donde se vestía de negro (aún lo hace) tenía el típico corte emo y escuchaba música de ese estilo de la época, y entre esas está la que nos ocupa hoy que es Sleeping with Sirens, y en serio, luego de muchos años, escuchar a Kellin Quinn que fue uno de los cantantes que más escuché en la época cantar canciones para Sonic es increíble, cada uno de los temas de jefes son demasiado buenos, y acompañan muy bien, me da igual que los jefes sean machacar botones, toda la epicidad que le dan con lo que son los visuales, Super Sonic haciendo técnicas muy vistosas y casi que vacilando a los robots gigantes con esa música de fondo (que aparte va cambiando dependiendo de la fase y el final de cada boss), estos momentos son donde el juego llega al peak más alto de toda la historia, hay hasta una puta referencia a Final Fantasy Sonic X (No es coincidencia, yo se que es una referencia directa y nadie me hará cambiar de idea).

En conclusión he de decir que a pesar de todo, está maratón me hizo aprender de como fue evolucionando una saga, todos los problemas que esta a presentado a lo largo de los años, sus problemas de identidad, ideas extrañas y otras bastante buenas, pero que terminaban ejecutándose mal, varios momentos pensé en tirar la toalla porque en serio habían juegos malos, pero creo que nunca bajar los brazos es una enseñanza que me llevo de esto, porque nunca sabemos que vendrá después, puedo decir que me convertí en un fan de Sonic, esperaré sus siguientes juegos, y espero que hayan aprendido con este juego todo lo bueno que se puede hacer con el personaje, y todo lo malo que se puede ir puliendo y arreglando, finalmente, voy a hacer trampa con el tema de la canción favorita porque lo amerita (muy difícil elegir solo una), así que subanle el volumen, sigan sus sueños y nunca se rindan, porque como dice el primer tema de los jefes, "Puedes tirarme a los lobos, PORQUE SOY INVENCIBLE"

Canciones Favoritas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_FRDqHT5y0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL0Z9UvDW3c

I only got, according to my PS5, about 46% through the second island, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. However, I feel like this game is about 46% of its way to being finished, so I think I’m being fair enough.

I think the game looks nice and the performance mode on PS5 seems to noticeably stay at a high frame rate. However, the game feels like Sonic Team just threw objects and Sonic stuff on a basic island template, and these obstacles will only pop in once you’re really close. They also stuck enemies in the world requiring hard counter moves to defeat that you need to grind to unlock, and then used a physics system that causes Sonic to stop dead in his tracks. The only boss fight I played was from the last train out of jank city, in which Super Sonic had a race to mash the square button 2,000 times before the boss could stall him.

Also, for what it’s worth, I felt slightly nauseous whenever I finished a session, but I’m not sure if the game caused it or if it was psychosomatic from me playing something like this.

The more I think about this game's story the more upset I get. It's a complete mockery that acts pathetic all the time and sucks off the older games. It makes sense why Sonic Team chose to completely rewrite the script for Japanese audiences. While I do love the older games, I don't love them because they would obsess over the classic games. They were original and had ideas they wanted to explore. This game is extremely surface level in terms of story and the voice acting perfectly exemplifies it. They try to make it a more "mature story" by having the English voice actor put on a deep voice. That's it. It's all performative. There's nothing of narrative substance here. The music is great but the music is always great when it's a game made by Sonic Team. The writing and english voice acting is the opposite of witty, and frankly painful to sit through. It reeks of Sonic comic writing and the characters act like their comic counterparts rather than the versions of them this game is trying to ape.

I hope this new "era" of Sonic doesn't last too long.

Good gameplay. Great bosses. Horrible story. Bad English voice acting.

Boring combat, boring open world, and atrocious cyberspace levels. How is it possible to make a game where NONE of the main gameplay loops are worth anything?

it feels like nothing in this game was made with quality of life in mind
you can't just get experience from killing enemies, you have to walk around and pick up every individual skill piece like you're picking up coins in scott pilgrim
you can't just get the seed from the puzzle, you have to walk over and pick it up first and THEN get pack to what you were doing
this goes down to even the UI
you can't just press yes on the dialouge box, you have to wait for the dialouge box to sit there for like 2 seconds and THEN you can press yes
you can't just put the gears in the portal and do the cyberspace level, you have to skip the cutscene that plays every time first
you can't just upgrade your stats, you have to go and talk to mr cocksleeve, say hi, and bow three times before you can do that
and everything there is to do sucks
looking around the map on foot is boring as sin because Sonic moves as fast as a molasses concrete sundae
doing the little """"""""""minigames"""""""""" to unlock the viewable map is boring as sin
fighting guardians is boring as sin because Asura and Squid suck
fighting normal enemies is boring as sin because you have no fucking moves, and the only way to get more moves is to fight enemies so the problem presents itself
finding seeds is boring as sin because a good number of them are found in sections that are 70% automated
cyberspace levels suck because like Forces levels but without the benefit of a boost that'll get you through them faster, and in some cases Forces legit had better level design as much as it pains me to say
yet at the same time, Frontiers has you holding the boost button almost as much as forces, since it presents a marginal speed boost that's almost never not just better than running normally, which I'm sure was the reason they went for a stamina bar rather than a rechargeable boost
in an hour and a half of playing, Frontiers presented me with zero things I found fun, which is a record low among games I play.

One of the worst Sonic games ever released. Day one I found myself enjoying the game with the music and bosses, but the gameplay and level design has always been lacking. Gone are the interesting set pieces and different routes seen in the majority of Sonic titles preceding this, and now we're left with gigantic open worlds filled with nothing. If you really want some platforming, you'll have to be way up in the sky on invisible rails and thin platforms.

And while it is fun to boost off of rails at high speed to see if you can reach another section, or boosting off a platform to reach another in an unintended way, the game is still fundamentally boring in it's actual objectives. The minigames that force you to do mind numbingly boring tasks, the challenges placed around the open world that focus on one part of Sonic's moveset such as side stepping, homing attacking, or "parrying", and cylooping around specific objects. It's extremely tasteless.

The story for this game was written by Ian Flynn, a longtime writer for the IDW and Archie Sonic comics. Similar to those, the writing is very poor, filled with mindless callbacks in an attempt to "strengthen the lore and continuity", and has laughably bad character writing, as everyone suddenly wants to do a 360 on their former personalities. And while what the story was trying to go for with it's characters is appreciated, it ultimately turns a game that could've had an interesting premise, into fixing what was wrong with everyone for the past decade, and setting up hopes for future installments, rather than focusing on the now.

The combat is mindless, you can pull off some neat combos and chains here and there, but the game does nothing to punish you for mindlessly spamming attacks or tries to teach you actual combinations of moves within Sonic's skillset. Extremely disappointing.

Bosses are the same as above, mindless combat with some neat eyecandy in it's QTE's.

The music, while setting itself far from the usual style of music the franchise has, does have a few bangers here and there. I love lo-fi as well as EDM, so this was a treat for my ears. Kellin Quinn as well as Tyler Smyth (who previously did some songs for Sonic Forces) comes along to drop some excellent tracks too.

Visuals are mediocre at best, sometimes the landscape looks great, while other times looks like a bunch of assets thrown together without much thought of synergy or style.

Cyberspace. Thank god these stages are mostly optional for completing the game, because they're some of the worst designed, looking, and feeling levels I've played in not just Sonic, but any other platformer in my life. The physics are complete shit, the level design is questionably bad, and the spectacle of it all is so pathetic. Sonic Generations, a game that came over 10 years before this, blows these stages out of the water with absolutely no struggle.

All in all a mess, I seriously couldn't recommend it to anyone wanting to try a Sonic game out.

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.

A game that manages to be quite fun to play most of the time despite being absolutely filled to the brim with baffling game design choices.

I've never really cared for Sonic games - 3D or 2D - but I found this to be a surprisingly compelling experience, so much so that I even got the platinum trophy for it. Maybe because they actually tried something new here? I thought the tacked on more traditional 3D Sonic levels (the Cyber Space stages) were a bummer and really unnecessary. At least they usually had fun music in them. Speaking of the music, I think the soundtrack is the highlight of the game for me. The tracks vary from chuckleworthy yet sincere (nu) metal battle themes to short and sweet house tunes to Breath of the Wild-esque ambience - I really, really liked it.

I don't have the energy or the will to go over every little thing that made me go "what? why?" while playing the game but rest assured that list was not short. I can't say I really paid much attention to the story but it felt like the characters' dialogue was written in a deliberately fanservice-y manner with various name-drops and references to previous games' events(?). If you're a hardcore Sonic fan (like most Sonic fans seem to be to be fair) you might appreciate it, I thought it was annoying.

I think Sonic the game character suits an open world game really well: it's fun to traverse environments at breakneck speeds and hop around amusement park like devices in the air! Sonic the game series, however, has a lot of structural things that need to either be heavily revamped or let go entirely in order for this type of free roam action-adventure game to properly work IMO. I'm not sure SEGA or Sonic Team are up to the task though but time will tell, I'm not not looking forward to seeing what a potential Sonic Frontiers 2 will be like I suppose? Yeah, that's about the highest praise and/or level of intrigue I'll allow myself to give for 3D Sonic.

Best story in a sonic game, but the gameplay has highs and lows. The open zone is super fun to explore. Sonic is a blast to control. Combat lacks substance sadly, but boss fights make up for that with style. Every so often you have to play a shitty minigame. Cyber Space is overhated; it isnt good on its own but nicely serves its purpose as a momentary distraction from the open zone without feeling shoehorned or being overly frustrating. The Final Horizon serves as a fitting end to the game, after its most recent update. While combat in the open zone and cyberspace both suck, they're also effortless to ignore. Exploration in the open zone is a joy as amy and knuckles. Tails not so much due to his lack of a homing attack. The towers are very fun and challenging platforming tasks. The trials are pretty lame tbh but then the final boss is the peakest of peaks. It's a mixed bag a little less consistent than what came before it but definitely worth it for the highs and the variety.