Warning: Very Mild Spoilers for Update 3: The Final Horizon. You have been warned.
By the time of Sonic Frontiers’ release, the Super Sonic fights that used to be a staple during the first half of Sonic’s 3D ventures have been… underwhelming, to say the least. Colors was the first to disregard the tradition in favor of having Sonic take on Eggman in his base form (plus the wisps). Then after Generations and its infinite homing shots tarnished the legacy of the Super Sonic boss fight, Sonic Team seemed to have dropped the set piece entirely in both Lost World and Forces. Meanwhile, Mania did have a Super Sonic final boss, but honestly, it just doesn’t pack the same punch.
To me, a Super Sonic fight represents an exciting, climatic grand finale that is the culmination of the build-up you saw across your playthrough of a Sonic game. A big finish to celebrate experiencing the joyful thrills or rage-inducing bullshit (depending on your opinion of any particular game) with one last victory lap. SA1 had you taking on a literal god made of water, Sonic’s biggest weakness. SA2 is a dramatic, climatic set-piece with world-ending stakes at hand. Heroes has you beating up a gigantic mech with the REAL SUPER POWER OF TEAMWORK! Even 06 had a perfectly competent final boss that actually worked as intended.
These fights are backed by incredible soundtracks that, unlike most AAA titles, enhance the threat level of the boss itself; instead, they empower you, the player, giving you an edge of superiority and invincibility as you rush headfirst into whatever apocalyptic kaiju Sonic has to beat down.
I am pleased to say that Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers didn’t just revitalise the Super Sonic fights, but made them the greatest in the series.
The Vulnerability of the Weakened Spirit
An element I believe to be crucial to the payoff of the Titan fights in Frontiers itself, which opens up a surprisingly more vulnerable side to the cast’s main leads - Amy, Knuckles and Tails all struggle with finding direction and purpose for their futures in their respective side stories. Through interacting with Sonic and the islands they reside in, however, they gain inspiration, and come to understand what their hearts desire. They finally find the truth of who they’re meant to become, another path they must now walk on.
(haha see what I did there)
Despite his main role as a source of inspiration for them, Sonic isn’t entirely the bulletproof, quip-hungry stereotype he’s been relegated to since Colors anymore. No, this is a complete return to form for him, and with this comes a newfound sense of vulnerability. Sonic quite literally gets his ass punted by Giganto earlier on, an immediate statement of how powerless he is compared to them at his base form. That, combined with his growing cyber-corruption (a consequence of his selflessness for his friends), gives him a more compelling narrative and makes his unsubtly concealed struggles both refreshing and painful to watch. However, much like the friends he inspires, Sonic is strengthened and emboldened by his undying desire to hold the ones he loves and keep them safe.
And this is where Kellin Quinn and the Super Sonic fights come to play.
The Invincibility of the Empowered Soul
Immediately after entering the fight, your ears are greeted by a vaguely similar, yet unfamiliar genre. This is Ohtani and Quinn’s newest innovation to the Super Sonic set piece - heavy metal. Despite the change in genre, the psychological adrenaline boost that a Super Sonic fight theme usually provides is still present in heaps, while also doing a fantastic job making the fight feel epic.
Each Titan theme brings something to the table. Undefeatable is a fast-paced, upfront declaration of invincibility that represents Sonic’s newly empowered state turning the tables in his rematch against Giganto, making the Goliath kaiju seem weak and feeble compared to their first encounter. Break Through it All’s steady build-up and subsequent bombastic delivery of its chorus represents Sonic’s resilience and determination in overcoming Wyvern and its constant bombardment of missiles and tail strikes in a thrilling, sky-high chase. Find Your Flame offers an intense back-and-forth wrestle between rap and vocals as Sonic and Knight engage in a chivalrous joust in the middle of a chasm. Finally, I’m Here (thanks, Final Horizon) is the embodiment of Sonic’s friends character arcs and the journey they experienced in reaching their new resolutions, as Sonic, emboldened by their support, takes on the final obstacles standing in their path in a climatic final fight. Throughout all this, Kellin Quinn just fucking nails his vocal delivery, his voice bringing a more youthful, energetic vibe akin to Johnny Gioeli, and his death metal screams further fuel the intensity of the Super Sonic vibes, giving the Titan themes incredibly strong 2000s shonen anime AMV vibes. All these songs just add to the sense of invincibility that Super Sonic fights used to deliver on.
Thankfully, it isn’t only the music doing the heavy lifting for the Super Sonic fights, because the gameplay holds up well, too. Super Sonic in Frontiers, for the first time since Heroes, actually controls exactly the same as regular Sonic, with the exception that he flies and is invincible now. This means that Titans can essentially be viewed as Guardians+, and what you’ve learnt about the combat system up to that point can be applied accordingly to these massive behemoths as well. Sure, this does mean that the fights can easily be cheesed with certain strategies, but that doesn’t quite diminish their overall quality to the point where it becomes a genuine flaw. Giganto especially, in compliance with its theme of becoming the hunted after previously being the hunter, is fun combo food where you basically have free reign to freestyle with your combat combos, serving as an incredibly memorable first boss fight to showcase your invincibility and basically being the symbol of this newly reinvented type of Super Sonic battle.
As if Sonic Team knew about how shonen these fights were going to get, they also introduced mid-fight cutscenes and power-ups ala DBZ, as well as tons of set piece QTEs where all you do is either mash the attack button or hit it at the perfect timing. This would normally be a blight but Unleashed, Colors and Forces did it with their boss fights too, so if I’m not complaining about them there, I won’t complain about them here. That being said, Frontiers more than compensates by making these set-pieces the coolest fucking things you’ve ever seen Super Sonic do ever. Sonic casually lifting a giant laser beam above his head and flinging it away effortlessly? Sick. Sonic stopping the tracks of Wyvern through sheer force and strength alone? Awesome. Sonic taking Knight’s gigantic blade for himself and using it to slice it in half? Fucking incredible. Truly makes Super Sonic feel like an unstoppable, invincible force. Overall, Titan fights in Frontiers just straight up have the most breathtaking and beautiful cinematography in the franchise, hands down, contributing to how groundbreaking these fights were in general.
For all of Sonic Frontiers’ many, many flaws, how it reinvigorated and brought Super Sonic fights back on the map will always be an obvious highlight and an incredibly positive sign of things to come with the new direction this game takes. May Frontiers 2 not shit itself on arrival.
Final rating: 7.5/10
Focus: How Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers revived the Super Sonic boss fights.
Theme: Vulnerability and Invincibility
By the time of Sonic Frontiers’ release, the Super Sonic fights that used to be a staple during the first half of Sonic’s 3D ventures have been… underwhelming, to say the least. Colors was the first to disregard the tradition in favor of having Sonic take on Eggman in his base form (plus the wisps). Then after Generations and its infinite homing shots tarnished the legacy of the Super Sonic boss fight, Sonic Team seemed to have dropped the set piece entirely in both Lost World and Forces. Meanwhile, Mania did have a Super Sonic final boss, but honestly, it just doesn’t pack the same punch.
To me, a Super Sonic fight represents an exciting, climatic grand finale that is the culmination of the build-up you saw across your playthrough of a Sonic game. A big finish to celebrate experiencing the joyful thrills or rage-inducing bullshit (depending on your opinion of any particular game) with one last victory lap. SA1 had you taking on a literal god made of water, Sonic’s biggest weakness. SA2 is a dramatic, climatic set-piece with world-ending stakes at hand. Heroes has you beating up a gigantic mech with the REAL SUPER POWER OF TEAMWORK! Even 06 had a perfectly competent final boss that actually worked as intended.
These fights are backed by incredible soundtracks that, unlike most AAA titles, enhance the threat level of the boss itself; instead, they empower you, the player, giving you an edge of superiority and invincibility as you rush headfirst into whatever apocalyptic kaiju Sonic has to beat down.
I am pleased to say that Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers didn’t just revitalise the Super Sonic fights, but made them the greatest in the series.
The Vulnerability of the Weakened Spirit
An element I believe to be crucial to the payoff of the Titan fights in Frontiers itself, which opens up a surprisingly more vulnerable side to the cast’s main leads - Amy, Knuckles and Tails all struggle with finding direction and purpose for their futures in their respective side stories. Through interacting with Sonic and the islands they reside in, however, they gain inspiration, and come to understand what their hearts desire. They finally find the truth of who they’re meant to become, another path they must now walk on.
(haha see what I did there)
Despite his main role as a source of inspiration for them, Sonic isn’t entirely the bulletproof, quip-hungry stereotype he’s been relegated to since Colors anymore. No, this is a complete return to form for him, and with this comes a newfound sense of vulnerability. Sonic quite literally gets his ass punted by Giganto earlier on, an immediate statement of how powerless he is compared to them at his base form. That, combined with his growing cyber-corruption (a consequence of his selflessness for his friends), gives him a more compelling narrative and makes his unsubtly concealed struggles both refreshing and painful to watch. However, much like the friends he inspires, Sonic is strengthened and emboldened by his undying desire to hold the ones he loves and keep them safe.
And this is where Kellin Quinn and the Super Sonic fights come to play.
The Invincibility of the Empowered Soul
Immediately after entering the fight, your ears are greeted by a vaguely similar, yet unfamiliar genre. This is Ohtani and Quinn’s newest innovation to the Super Sonic set piece - heavy metal. Despite the change in genre, the psychological adrenaline boost that a Super Sonic fight theme usually provides is still present in heaps, while also doing a fantastic job making the fight feel epic.
Each Titan theme brings something to the table. Undefeatable is a fast-paced, upfront declaration of invincibility that represents Sonic’s newly empowered state turning the tables in his rematch against Giganto, making the Goliath kaiju seem weak and feeble compared to their first encounter. Break Through it All’s steady build-up and subsequent bombastic delivery of its chorus represents Sonic’s resilience and determination in overcoming Wyvern and its constant bombardment of missiles and tail strikes in a thrilling, sky-high chase. Find Your Flame offers an intense back-and-forth wrestle between rap and vocals as Sonic and Knight engage in a chivalrous joust in the middle of a chasm. Finally, I’m Here (thanks, Final Horizon) is the embodiment of Sonic’s friends character arcs and the journey they experienced in reaching their new resolutions, as Sonic, emboldened by their support, takes on the final obstacles standing in their path in a climatic final fight. Throughout all this, Kellin Quinn just fucking nails his vocal delivery, his voice bringing a more youthful, energetic vibe akin to Johnny Gioeli, and his death metal screams further fuel the intensity of the Super Sonic vibes, giving the Titan themes incredibly strong 2000s shonen anime AMV vibes. All these songs just add to the sense of invincibility that Super Sonic fights used to deliver on.
Thankfully, it isn’t only the music doing the heavy lifting for the Super Sonic fights, because the gameplay holds up well, too. Super Sonic in Frontiers, for the first time since Heroes, actually controls exactly the same as regular Sonic, with the exception that he flies and is invincible now. This means that Titans can essentially be viewed as Guardians+, and what you’ve learnt about the combat system up to that point can be applied accordingly to these massive behemoths as well. Sure, this does mean that the fights can easily be cheesed with certain strategies, but that doesn’t quite diminish their overall quality to the point where it becomes a genuine flaw. Giganto especially, in compliance with its theme of becoming the hunted after previously being the hunter, is fun combo food where you basically have free reign to freestyle with your combat combos, serving as an incredibly memorable first boss fight to showcase your invincibility and basically being the symbol of this newly reinvented type of Super Sonic battle.
As if Sonic Team knew about how shonen these fights were going to get, they also introduced mid-fight cutscenes and power-ups ala DBZ, as well as tons of set piece QTEs where all you do is either mash the attack button or hit it at the perfect timing. This would normally be a blight but Unleashed, Colors and Forces did it with their boss fights too, so if I’m not complaining about them there, I won’t complain about them here. That being said, Frontiers more than compensates by making these set-pieces the coolest fucking things you’ve ever seen Super Sonic do ever. Sonic casually lifting a giant laser beam above his head and flinging it away effortlessly? Sick. Sonic stopping the tracks of Wyvern through sheer force and strength alone? Awesome. Sonic taking Knight’s gigantic blade for himself and using it to slice it in half? Fucking incredible. Truly makes Super Sonic feel like an unstoppable, invincible force. Overall, Titan fights in Frontiers just straight up have the most breathtaking and beautiful cinematography in the franchise, hands down, contributing to how groundbreaking these fights were in general.
For all of Sonic Frontiers’ many, many flaws, how it reinvigorated and brought Super Sonic fights back on the map will always be an obvious highlight and an incredibly positive sign of things to come with the new direction this game takes. May Frontiers 2 not shit itself on arrival.
Final rating: 7.5/10
Focus: How Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers revived the Super Sonic boss fights.
Theme: Vulnerability and Invincibility