This review contains spoilers
What can I say about Sonic Frontiers?
Well, first, I can offer caveats. I’ve been a mega Sonic fan from a young age, so I’m genetically predisposed to love even a mid Sonic game more than life itself, especially after the years of games that would kill to be considered ‘just okay.’ (And there are even things I like about Forces, if that gives you an idea of my biases. FORCES!) I also care deeply about the lore and continuity. I care deeply about these characters and would give about anything for them to get good writing on occasion. So I’m not coming at this review from an objective standpoint, or from the position of someone here for the gameplay and not the stories. And..honestly, I don’t think anyone who’s NOT a mega Sonic fan could review this game properly. Not when it feels like, at its core, such a love letter to just those kinds of fans, the ones who obsess over the lore and miss Tikal.
But, before we get into all that. The movement ranges from acceptable to really wonderful; the Cyberspace levels are the weakest part of the game by far, and while Sonic controls fine in them, the stages built around the boost mechanic are rough (the ones pulled from older games are much better) and most levels are stripped down from the games where they originally appeared. Where movement really shines is in the open world areas; it’s a delight to zip around huge areas freely, and the boost mechanic makes so much more sense in this context — rather than trivializing already-short levels, it instead makes it easy to navigate huge areas. The customization options with the movement are great; I cranked everything all the way up, but I appreciate that folks who wanted Sonic to move a bit more predictably had that option. It also felt funny that, after years of reviewers quibbling over whether Sonic is too fast or too slow, the devs said, “FUCK IT, YOU THINK YOU CAN DO BETTER? DO IT YOURSELF.”
Combat in the open zone is exciting and more involved than Sonic combat usually is; the combos are really fun, and stringing them together felt good and stylish in a way that’s very in character for Sonic. While I didn’t use it, the auto-combo function is really nice, giving those who can’t or don’t want to worry about combos a chance to see the hog pulling moves like the game is called Hedgehogs May Cry, purely because it rules. By the end of Chaos Island, I was skipping most combat simply because I’d grown a little bored, but at first it was genuinely thrilling, and even by the end it was rarely unpleasant. The puzzles to unlock more of the map were largely ridiculously simple, but most were still fun. I found fishing with Big to be at first delightful, then kind of a chore, and then an almost meditative practice; with those sweet lo-fi beats to chill and fish to in the background, I found myself fishing without really processing it for longer than I care to admit. There are tons of gimmicks that run the gamut from delightful to a pain; it felt a bit like Sonic Team was trying absolutely everything, seeing what sticks.
The graphics are…fine. They could and should be better, but I don’t think anyone plays Sonic for the graphics, and general issues were mostly only noticeable in the cutscenes. Just running around, the worlds are really gorgeous, and I stopped to admire more than a few sunsets just for the sake of it. But it often felt like the graphics couldn’t keep up with the game; yes, there are pop-ins, which I don’t think is ever going to be totally avoidable with a Sonic open-world game and are a sacrifice I’m willing to make. But even when just standing still, sometimes shadows glitched or jumped around. Textures would briefly forget themselves. Not game-breaking, and it didn’t ruin the experience at all, but it did quirk a brow. On the other end of the spectrum, it was DELIGHTFUL to see how expressive the models and characters are, and that’s absolutely the high point of the game graphically. The way Sonic and Knux interacted made me grin from ear to ear, in large part due to how expressive their faces and body languages were.
Altogether, the gameplay is pretty good, and the graphics are fine. Both are great bases to build and iterate on, and it’s such a relief to play a Sonic game that feels slightly unpolished and a little repetitive rather than completely unplayable. Yep, the technical aspects are just fine. But it doesn’t really matter. The gameplay could spit on my mother and call me ugly to my face and I’d still love this game because, as I said, it’s a love-letter to Sonic fans and the games themselves.
When was the last time we got new lore that wasn’t just “oh, look, another magic rock!”? When was the last time there was continuity between the games? When was the last time these characters had ACTUAL WRITING? And such GOOD writing! The story isn’t world-altering in its originality, but it completely understands Sonic, the characters and the world. It takes itself seriously and tells a meaningful story without defaulting to a plotless Saturday morning cartoon of Sonic being a dick, unlike some of the more recent games. The overarching story is lovely and poignant, and only made more so by the way each Island links the Koco’s stories to that of the characters; Amy’s love reflected on Kronos Island, and motivating her to want to grow — and love — on her own for a while. Knuckles seeing parallels with his people to the Ancients and mourning his people and theirs all at once. Tails deciding he wants to try and be a solo-hero for a while, to give himself a chance to grow into his own, after worrying that he’s a burden and a follower. It’s all really lovely, and feels very true to everyone’s characters while still taking into account poor writing in past games and justifying it.
AND THE PAST GAMES! Oh my god, this game references the other games SO MUCH and it’s SO GOOD. Most Sonic games have been totally disconnected from the games preceding them — no one mentions Dark Gaia or the ARK. No continuity, no character arc between games. But this game lets those past adventures MATTER. Tails mentioning his breakdown with Infinite as proof of his uselessness, only for Sonic to shoot back by reminding him of multiple times and multiple games where Tails has saved him, felt so good that I thought I’d pass out.
This game has writing — and really good writing. I can’t remember the last time a Sonic game had good writing, and half of the more recent ones don’t have writing at all! This game would be worth the price of admission for Knuckles’ arc alone, and I mean that.
It’s, of course, impossible to entirely forget that part of the reason this game means so much to me (and many other long-time fans) is because the last couple games have been So Bad. Any other game having mostly-good-but-eventually-frustratingly-repetitive gameplay and a well-written plot would be nothing special, which makes rating the game something of a problem. Do I rate it the way I’d rate another game like this, or do I rate it as a Sonic fan who’s been starved for years and is finally getting to see the characters and world I love respected? At the end of the day, the game is clearly written for fans like me; fans who care about the continuity and the writing, fans who want these things to be consistent, fans who miss the characters and the games feeling like they belong to a world and a timeline. I have to rate it according to how delighted I was 90% of the time, and I was DELIGHTED. I have a lot of personal quibbles, as I imagine most people do. But they’re SO minor compared to how much I adored experiencing this story.
It’s a game that the devs and writers clearly cared about a great deal. It’s a game where the characters are well-written and compelling. It’s a game where the voice direction is really, really good — Roger’s never sounded better as Sonic, and Eggman also shines — and the characters feel like they really care about and love one other. It’s a game with REALLY GOOD MUSIC (though, it’s not as if there was ever any doubt there). It’s a game with some wonky graphics and some repetitive gameplay, but it’s a great base to build off of, and assuming Sega sticks with this format, there’s nowhere to go but up. I can’t wait to watch it happen.
(Also? Tangle’s canon, baby.)
Well, first, I can offer caveats. I’ve been a mega Sonic fan from a young age, so I’m genetically predisposed to love even a mid Sonic game more than life itself, especially after the years of games that would kill to be considered ‘just okay.’ (And there are even things I like about Forces, if that gives you an idea of my biases. FORCES!) I also care deeply about the lore and continuity. I care deeply about these characters and would give about anything for them to get good writing on occasion. So I’m not coming at this review from an objective standpoint, or from the position of someone here for the gameplay and not the stories. And..honestly, I don’t think anyone who’s NOT a mega Sonic fan could review this game properly. Not when it feels like, at its core, such a love letter to just those kinds of fans, the ones who obsess over the lore and miss Tikal.
But, before we get into all that. The movement ranges from acceptable to really wonderful; the Cyberspace levels are the weakest part of the game by far, and while Sonic controls fine in them, the stages built around the boost mechanic are rough (the ones pulled from older games are much better) and most levels are stripped down from the games where they originally appeared. Where movement really shines is in the open world areas; it’s a delight to zip around huge areas freely, and the boost mechanic makes so much more sense in this context — rather than trivializing already-short levels, it instead makes it easy to navigate huge areas. The customization options with the movement are great; I cranked everything all the way up, but I appreciate that folks who wanted Sonic to move a bit more predictably had that option. It also felt funny that, after years of reviewers quibbling over whether Sonic is too fast or too slow, the devs said, “FUCK IT, YOU THINK YOU CAN DO BETTER? DO IT YOURSELF.”
Combat in the open zone is exciting and more involved than Sonic combat usually is; the combos are really fun, and stringing them together felt good and stylish in a way that’s very in character for Sonic. While I didn’t use it, the auto-combo function is really nice, giving those who can’t or don’t want to worry about combos a chance to see the hog pulling moves like the game is called Hedgehogs May Cry, purely because it rules. By the end of Chaos Island, I was skipping most combat simply because I’d grown a little bored, but at first it was genuinely thrilling, and even by the end it was rarely unpleasant. The puzzles to unlock more of the map were largely ridiculously simple, but most were still fun. I found fishing with Big to be at first delightful, then kind of a chore, and then an almost meditative practice; with those sweet lo-fi beats to chill and fish to in the background, I found myself fishing without really processing it for longer than I care to admit. There are tons of gimmicks that run the gamut from delightful to a pain; it felt a bit like Sonic Team was trying absolutely everything, seeing what sticks.
The graphics are…fine. They could and should be better, but I don’t think anyone plays Sonic for the graphics, and general issues were mostly only noticeable in the cutscenes. Just running around, the worlds are really gorgeous, and I stopped to admire more than a few sunsets just for the sake of it. But it often felt like the graphics couldn’t keep up with the game; yes, there are pop-ins, which I don’t think is ever going to be totally avoidable with a Sonic open-world game and are a sacrifice I’m willing to make. But even when just standing still, sometimes shadows glitched or jumped around. Textures would briefly forget themselves. Not game-breaking, and it didn’t ruin the experience at all, but it did quirk a brow. On the other end of the spectrum, it was DELIGHTFUL to see how expressive the models and characters are, and that’s absolutely the high point of the game graphically. The way Sonic and Knux interacted made me grin from ear to ear, in large part due to how expressive their faces and body languages were.
Altogether, the gameplay is pretty good, and the graphics are fine. Both are great bases to build and iterate on, and it’s such a relief to play a Sonic game that feels slightly unpolished and a little repetitive rather than completely unplayable. Yep, the technical aspects are just fine. But it doesn’t really matter. The gameplay could spit on my mother and call me ugly to my face and I’d still love this game because, as I said, it’s a love-letter to Sonic fans and the games themselves.
When was the last time we got new lore that wasn’t just “oh, look, another magic rock!”? When was the last time there was continuity between the games? When was the last time these characters had ACTUAL WRITING? And such GOOD writing! The story isn’t world-altering in its originality, but it completely understands Sonic, the characters and the world. It takes itself seriously and tells a meaningful story without defaulting to a plotless Saturday morning cartoon of Sonic being a dick, unlike some of the more recent games. The overarching story is lovely and poignant, and only made more so by the way each Island links the Koco’s stories to that of the characters; Amy’s love reflected on Kronos Island, and motivating her to want to grow — and love — on her own for a while. Knuckles seeing parallels with his people to the Ancients and mourning his people and theirs all at once. Tails deciding he wants to try and be a solo-hero for a while, to give himself a chance to grow into his own, after worrying that he’s a burden and a follower. It’s all really lovely, and feels very true to everyone’s characters while still taking into account poor writing in past games and justifying it.
AND THE PAST GAMES! Oh my god, this game references the other games SO MUCH and it’s SO GOOD. Most Sonic games have been totally disconnected from the games preceding them — no one mentions Dark Gaia or the ARK. No continuity, no character arc between games. But this game lets those past adventures MATTER. Tails mentioning his breakdown with Infinite as proof of his uselessness, only for Sonic to shoot back by reminding him of multiple times and multiple games where Tails has saved him, felt so good that I thought I’d pass out.
This game has writing — and really good writing. I can’t remember the last time a Sonic game had good writing, and half of the more recent ones don’t have writing at all! This game would be worth the price of admission for Knuckles’ arc alone, and I mean that.
It’s, of course, impossible to entirely forget that part of the reason this game means so much to me (and many other long-time fans) is because the last couple games have been So Bad. Any other game having mostly-good-but-eventually-frustratingly-repetitive gameplay and a well-written plot would be nothing special, which makes rating the game something of a problem. Do I rate it the way I’d rate another game like this, or do I rate it as a Sonic fan who’s been starved for years and is finally getting to see the characters and world I love respected? At the end of the day, the game is clearly written for fans like me; fans who care about the continuity and the writing, fans who want these things to be consistent, fans who miss the characters and the games feeling like they belong to a world and a timeline. I have to rate it according to how delighted I was 90% of the time, and I was DELIGHTED. I have a lot of personal quibbles, as I imagine most people do. But they’re SO minor compared to how much I adored experiencing this story.
It’s a game that the devs and writers clearly cared about a great deal. It’s a game where the characters are well-written and compelling. It’s a game where the voice direction is really, really good — Roger’s never sounded better as Sonic, and Eggman also shines — and the characters feel like they really care about and love one other. It’s a game with REALLY GOOD MUSIC (though, it’s not as if there was ever any doubt there). It’s a game with some wonky graphics and some repetitive gameplay, but it’s a great base to build off of, and assuming Sega sticks with this format, there’s nowhere to go but up. I can’t wait to watch it happen.
(Also? Tangle’s canon, baby.)