If they had channeled all of the energy of the boss fights and soundtrack into the rest of the game, this could've been an instant classic! Instead we're left with a dozen hours of running around as an utterly momentum-free Sonic through a world that looks like it was made in Halo Forge by a real actual hedgehog and completing banally unchallenging activities to reveal points of varying interest on the Minimalist Yet Panic-Inducing Ubisoft Icon Map. Why this is being lauded as a bold and daring new direction for the series instead of half-assed trend chasing, I don't really understand, but the Battered Sonic Fan Syndrome works in mysterious ways.
The cyberspace stages are honestly like a joke at modern Sonic Team's expense - people that hated the repeated levels of Forces didn't know how good they had it, as Frontiers comes with 30 stages composed of only FOUR themes, three of which are lifted wholesale from Generations to the point of also occasionally having the exact same level design. I don't know if Sonic Team thinks people are still charmed by Green Hill/Chemical Plant/Sky Sanctuary in 2022 or they straight-up just couldn't be assed to make new assets for these, but the exhausting aesthetics combined with the controls taking a shit the moment the stage starts regularly make these the worst part of the game.
I commend Ian Flynn for being the first Sonic writer to give one quantum of a damn about this universe in more than a decade, to the point of actually addressing unresolved plot threads and providing some nice character writing, but the consistently melancholic tone and focus on ancient civilization drama didn't really grab me. If they didn't want me to find everything done with Eggman here corny and lame, they should've probably paced his presence in the game a bit better instead of leaving most of his development in audio logs.
I get that many people are so thirsty for a new Sonic Adventure that they've become shriveled husks which is why this game's story and general structure was like an IV infusion for them, but referring to something this banged-up and drab as a spiritual SA3 just feels wrong to me. There are glimpses of that here, the simple but punchy combat and the aforementioned spectacular boss fights definitely carry the confident exuberance of Sonic's 6th-gen era, but everything else feels like the bare minimum being done with the concept of "Open World the Hedgehog" set in an environment that has more in common with Death Stranding than with Sonic Adventure.
Did I like it? Yeah, I guess enough to finish it. It felt nice when the gameplay loop eventually clicked and the level of challenge went up, but then the game kinda kept going long after it ran out of steam. I definitely have more to say but most of it comes down to "this absolutely isn't as soulful as it's being praised, but there's neat stuff in it". I hope whatever's next in store is a refinement of the formula presented here, so that we can eventually look back at Frontiers as a janky, pop-in-infested tech demo for the Definitive Sonic Renaissance For Real This Time You Guys.
The cyberspace stages are honestly like a joke at modern Sonic Team's expense - people that hated the repeated levels of Forces didn't know how good they had it, as Frontiers comes with 30 stages composed of only FOUR themes, three of which are lifted wholesale from Generations to the point of also occasionally having the exact same level design. I don't know if Sonic Team thinks people are still charmed by Green Hill/Chemical Plant/Sky Sanctuary in 2022 or they straight-up just couldn't be assed to make new assets for these, but the exhausting aesthetics combined with the controls taking a shit the moment the stage starts regularly make these the worst part of the game.
I commend Ian Flynn for being the first Sonic writer to give one quantum of a damn about this universe in more than a decade, to the point of actually addressing unresolved plot threads and providing some nice character writing, but the consistently melancholic tone and focus on ancient civilization drama didn't really grab me. If they didn't want me to find everything done with Eggman here corny and lame, they should've probably paced his presence in the game a bit better instead of leaving most of his development in audio logs.
I get that many people are so thirsty for a new Sonic Adventure that they've become shriveled husks which is why this game's story and general structure was like an IV infusion for them, but referring to something this banged-up and drab as a spiritual SA3 just feels wrong to me. There are glimpses of that here, the simple but punchy combat and the aforementioned spectacular boss fights definitely carry the confident exuberance of Sonic's 6th-gen era, but everything else feels like the bare minimum being done with the concept of "Open World the Hedgehog" set in an environment that has more in common with Death Stranding than with Sonic Adventure.
Did I like it? Yeah, I guess enough to finish it. It felt nice when the gameplay loop eventually clicked and the level of challenge went up, but then the game kinda kept going long after it ran out of steam. I definitely have more to say but most of it comes down to "this absolutely isn't as soulful as it's being praised, but there's neat stuff in it". I hope whatever's next in store is a refinement of the formula presented here, so that we can eventually look back at Frontiers as a janky, pop-in-infested tech demo for the Definitive Sonic Renaissance For Real This Time You Guys.