I know I'm a little more down on this than most, but after playing hours upon hours of this game for work, I genuinely think it's just a bit of a dud. Definitely not terrible for a Sonic game; boy, have we seen enough scuffed Sonic games to know what it could've turned out like...
The general open-world focus is a good fit for Sonic and the way it peppers in classic stage-based gameplay is a smart blend of a new format with a classic flavour. But the whole thing is essentially just a melting pot of ideas that never really work together or feel all that original.
This is just SEGA looking at Breath of the Wild and going, why don't we just do the same thing? The snag there is that Frontiers isn't as smartly put together or compelling as Breath of the Wild, so it quickly becomes what I like to call a "spaghetti game".
By that, I mean it throws so much shit at the wall just to see what sticks, and that just makes it a confused, muddled, overly-designed mess that sets up a million mechanics that are basically useless. There are like 9 currencies that do nothing, a gazillion combat moves you never need to use, RPG stats that have no tangible effect on gameplay and a whole bunch of mini-games that always feel basic and underdeveloped.
Breath of the Wild was vast and multifaceted, but it was simple. You had varied shrines that bumped your stats and dungeon-based Divine Beasts that provided new abilities, and beyond that, it let you explore a world without strict guidelines. Every element in the game was purposeful and required to craft that specific experience.
Sonic Frontiers is the antithesis of that design philosophy. It has so much going on but all of its main elements severely lack substance. Eventually, it just means you're trudging through bland environments doing the same 4 or 5 tasks you've been doing for the last 15 hours until the credits roll.
The whole thing just feels like a desperate bid to grasp onto whatever modern gaming trends are big right now, and that meant copying Breath of the Wild's homework. But clearly Sega was in a bad position to lean over and get a cheeky peek at Nintendo's paper, because what they've produced is just a shallow and forgettable imitation.
The general open-world focus is a good fit for Sonic and the way it peppers in classic stage-based gameplay is a smart blend of a new format with a classic flavour. But the whole thing is essentially just a melting pot of ideas that never really work together or feel all that original.
This is just SEGA looking at Breath of the Wild and going, why don't we just do the same thing? The snag there is that Frontiers isn't as smartly put together or compelling as Breath of the Wild, so it quickly becomes what I like to call a "spaghetti game".
By that, I mean it throws so much shit at the wall just to see what sticks, and that just makes it a confused, muddled, overly-designed mess that sets up a million mechanics that are basically useless. There are like 9 currencies that do nothing, a gazillion combat moves you never need to use, RPG stats that have no tangible effect on gameplay and a whole bunch of mini-games that always feel basic and underdeveloped.
Breath of the Wild was vast and multifaceted, but it was simple. You had varied shrines that bumped your stats and dungeon-based Divine Beasts that provided new abilities, and beyond that, it let you explore a world without strict guidelines. Every element in the game was purposeful and required to craft that specific experience.
Sonic Frontiers is the antithesis of that design philosophy. It has so much going on but all of its main elements severely lack substance. Eventually, it just means you're trudging through bland environments doing the same 4 or 5 tasks you've been doing for the last 15 hours until the credits roll.
The whole thing just feels like a desperate bid to grasp onto whatever modern gaming trends are big right now, and that meant copying Breath of the Wild's homework. But clearly Sega was in a bad position to lean over and get a cheeky peek at Nintendo's paper, because what they've produced is just a shallow and forgettable imitation.